Contents
Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard
The Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
1
26
You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David
Levithan
52
Accidental Superstar by Marianne Levy
85
Burning Midnight by Will McIntosh
108
Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky
144
Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
173
The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter
Hapgood
198
Remade by Alex Scarrow
224
Please note: These are uncorrected extracts. Readers are requested to
check all quotations against the published edition. Price and publication
date are subject to change without notice.
BEAUTIFUL BROKEN THINGS
BY SARA BARNARD
I was brave
She was reckless
We were trouble
Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their
differences have brought them closer, but as she turns
sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like
Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne
comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and
mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated.
As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to
unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble
can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is
rougher than either girl realizes, and Caddy is about to
learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their
own.
1
I thought it was the start to a love story.
Finally.
The boy, who looked to be around my age or slightly older,
had skidded to a stop in front of me. He gave me a quick, obvious
once-over and then switched on a wide, flirtatious grin. His
friend, better looking but very much not grinning flirtatiously at
me, rolled his eyes.
‘Heeeey,’ the boy said, just like that. Heeeey.
‘Hi,’ I said, sending up a quick prayer that my bus wouldn’t
arrive before the conversation ended. I tried to flick my hair
casually – difficult to do when it’s a touch on the bushy side –
and lifted my chin, like my sister once showed me when she was
trying to teach me how to act confident.
‘What flavour have you got?’
‘What?’
He gestured to the ShakeAway cup in my hand. ‘Oh,’ I said,
stupidly. ‘Toblerone.’ I’d only had a few sips of the milkshake. I
liked to let it melt a little before I started drinking it properly,
and the cup was heavy in my hand.
‘Nice.’ The boy carried on grinning at me. ‘I’ve never tried
that one. Can I have a sip?’
Here is what I was thinking as I handed over my milkshake:
He likes ShakeAways! I like ShakeAways! This is a MOMENT.
This is the START.
And then his back was to me and he and his friend were
running away, their laughter lingering after them. When they
were a few feet away, the boy turned, waving my cup
triumphantly at me. ‘Thanks, love!’ he bellowed, either not
3
realizing or not caring that he was not old enough – not to
mention suave enough – to pull off ‘love’.
I just stood there with my hand holding nothing but air. The
other people at the bus stop were all staring at me, some hiding
smirks, others clearly pained with second-hand embarrassment. I
adjusted my bag strap as nonchalantly as I could, avoiding
anyone’s gaze, seriously considering stepping in front of a
passing bus.
Three days ago I had turned sixteen – the first of my friends
to hit this particular milestone, thanks to my end-of-August
birthday – and my parents had rented out a hall for my birthday
party. ‘You can invite boys!’ my mother had told me, looking
more excited by this prospect than anyone. The problem wasn’t
that I didn’t want boys (definitely not), the problem was that I
went to a girls’ school, and I could count the number of boys I
knew well enough to speak to on one hand. Despite the efforts of
my best friend, Rosie, who went to the mixed comprehensive and
had plenty of boy/friends, the gender mix at the party was
hopelessly unbalanced. I spent most of the night eating cake and
talking with my friends rather than flirting wildly and dancing
with what Rosie called potentials, like sixteen-year-olds are
supposed to do. It wasn’t a bad way to see in a new age, but it
wasn’t exactly spectacular either.
I mention this so my OK-have-my-milkshake-stranger idiocy
has some context. I was sixteen, and I honestly believed that I
was due a love story. Nothing epic (I’m not greedy), but
something worth talking about. Someone to hold hands with
(etc.). The milkshake meet-cute should have led to that. But
instead I was just me, standing empty-handed, and the boy was
just a boy.
When the bus pulled up just a couple of minutes later and I
retreated to the anonymity of the top deck, I made a mental list of
4
milestones I would have reached by the time my next birthday
rolled around.
1) I would get a boyfriend. A real one.
2) I would lose my virginity.
3) I would experience a Significant Life Event.
In the following year I achieved just one of these goals. And it
wasn’t the one I expected.
‘So he just took your milkshake?’ Rosie’s voice was sceptical. It
was nearly 9 p.m., and she’d called me for our traditional
lastnight-before-school-starts chat.
‘Yeah. Right out of my hand.’
‘He just snatched it?’
‘Um. Yes?’
There was a pause, followed by the sound of Rosie’s laughter
tickling down the line. Aside from my grandparents, Rosie was
the only person I spoke to using the landline. ‘Oh my God,
Caddy, did you give it to him?’
‘Not deliberately,’ I said, already wishing I hadn’t brought up
the milkshake story. But it was always hard to stop myself telling
Rosie everything. It was just second nature.
‘I wish I’d been there.’
‘Me too – you could have chased after him for me.’
Rosie and I had spent the day together, another beforeschoolstarts tradition, and had actually bought a milkshake each before
going our separate ways. She would definitely have chased after
him, had she been there. When we were four, not long after we’d
first met at a ballet class we both hated, an older boy had snatched
my bow (I was the kind of kid who wore bows in her hair) and
5
Rosie had sprinted after him, taken back the bow and stamped on
his foot. Our friendship had followed a similar pattern ever since.
‘Why didn’t you chase him?’
‘I was surprised!’
‘You’d think after all this time in separate schools you’d have
learned to chase your own bullies,’ Rosie said, her voice light and
teasing.
‘Maybe Year 11 will be the year.’
‘Maybe. Do they even have bullies in private school?’
‘Yes.’ She knew very well that they did. She was the one I’d
cried to for several straight months in Year 8 when I’d been the
target. My school, Esther Herring’s High School for Girls, had
more than its fair share of bullies.
‘Oh yeah. Sorry. I mean boy bullies. Obviously you don’t get
those at Esther’s. Those are the ones I chase for you.’
I let her tease me about teenage boy thieves for a few minutes
more until we hung up. I headed back upstairs in the direction of
my bedroom, walking past my mother, who was ironing in front
of the TV.
‘I’ve got your uniform here,’ she called after me. ‘Do you
want to come and get it?’
I trudged reluctantly back towards her. My uniform was
hanging on the cupboard door, the pleats on the skirt perfect, the
blazer practically shining. I’d avoided looking at my uniform all
summer. It was even greener than I remembered.
‘All freshly ironed,’ Mum said, looking pleased and proud.
No one was happier that I was at Esther’s than her. When she
found out I’d got in, she cried. Actually we both cried, but mine
were not happy tears.
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the hangers.
6
‘Are you excited about tomorrow?’ She was smiling, and I
wondered if she was being oblivious on purpose.
‘Not really,’ I said, but I injected a note of humour into my
voice, to avoid a long ‘don’t disparage your opportunities’
speech.
‘It’s a big year,’ Mum said. The iron made a loud, squelching
hissing noise, and she lifted it up. I suddenly realized she was
ironing my father’s pants.
‘Mmmm,’ I said, edging towards the door.
‘It’ll be a great one,’ Mum continued happily, not even
looking at me. ‘I can already tell. Maybe they’ll make you a
prefect.’
This was unlikely. Being well behaved and getting good
grades was not enough to set you apart at Esther’s. The two
prefects likely to be selected from my form were Tanisha, who’d
started a feminist society in Year 9 and wanted to be prime
minister, and Violet, who headed up the debating team and had
campaigned successfully to get the school to go Fairtrade.
Esther’s was made for people like Tanisha and Violet. They
didn’t just achieve, which was expected to be a given for
everyone, they thrived.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Don’t be disappointed if I’m not though,
OK?’
‘I’ll be disappointed at them, not you,’ Mum replied, like this
was any better.
Great, I thought. Another thing to worry about.
‘I really hope you’ll be focusing on your goals this year,’ Mum
said, looking up at me just as I tried to make my escape from the
room. She was always big on goals.
7
I thought of the milestone list I’d mentally penned earlier on
the bus. Boyfriend. Virginity. Significant Life Events. ‘I am,’ I
said. ‘Completely focused. Goodnight.’
Here’s my theory on Significant Life Events: everyone has them,
but some have more than others, and how many you have affects
how interesting you are, how many stories you have to tell, that
kind of thing. I was still waiting for my first one.
Not that I’m complaining, but my life up to the age of sixteen
had been steady and unblemished. My parents were still married,
my best friend had been constant for over ten years, I’d never
been seriously ill and no one close to me had died. I’d also never
won any major competition, been spotted for a talent (not that I
had a talent) or really achieved anything beyond schoolwork.
This wasn’t to say I hadn’t been on the fringe of these kinds
of events for other people. Rosie herself had had two, both bad.
At two and a half her father walked out on her and her mother,
never to be seen again. When she was eleven, her new baby sister,
Tansy, was a cot-death victim. My older sister, Tarin, had been
diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of eighteen, when I
was ten, and the entire period of her diagnosis had been marked
by dark clouds and tears and Serious Discussions. I’d
experienced these latter two events from the middle of the storm,
and had seen how they’d shaped the lives of two of my favourite
people in the world.
Rosie and Tarin both thought my significant-life-event theory
was ridiculous.
‘Don’t wish tragedy on yourself,’ Tarin said. ‘Or mental
illness.’ She didn’t get it when I tried to explain that significant
life events could be happy things as well. ‘Like what?’
8
‘Like getting married?’ When her eyes went wide I added
quickly, ‘I mean in general, obviously, not for me anytime soon.’
‘God, Caddy, I hope you dream bigger than marriage as your
life’s significant event.’
Rosie was dismissive. ‘They’re just horrible things that
happened, Cads. They don’t make me more interesting than you.’
But the thing was, they did. The only interesting story I had to
tell about my own life was that of my birth, which aside from my
starring role as The Baby really had nothing to do with me. My
parents, holidaying in Hampshire several weeks before my
estimated arrival day, were stuck in a traffic jam in a little village
called Cadnam when Mum went into labour. She ended up having
me on the side of the road, with the help of a nurse who happened
to be in another car.
This made a great story to pull out of the hat if I ever needed
to, and I’d told it so many times (‘Caddy’s an interesting/
weird/funny name. What’s it short for?’) I knew what kind of
facial expressions to expect from the listener and the jokes they’d
likely make (‘Good thing they weren’t driving through
Croydon/Horsham/Slough! Ha!’). But that still didn’t make it
mine. I couldn’t remember it, and it had no effect on my life. It
was a significant event for my parents, not for me.
If anyone asked me for a story from my life in the present
tense, I always went blank.
Of course I wasn’t trying to invite tragedy into my life. I knew
the takeaway from pain is sadness, not anecdotes. But everything
about me and my life felt ordinary, hopelessly average, even
clichéd. All I wanted was something of some significance to
happen.
And then, so slowly at first I almost didn’t notice it happening,
it did.
9
2
Tuesday
Rosie, 09.07: New girl alert.
Caddy, 10.32: ??
10.34: We have a new girl!
10.39: Really? Details please.
10.44: Her names Suzanne. Seems very cool. More later,
maths now.
13.19: She just moved here from Reading. Takes same
options as me! V funny.
13.20: I mean shes v funny, not the options thing.
13.28: Cool. How’s everything else?
13.33: Same as. Call me tonight for chattage x
13.35: Will do x
Wednesday
08.33: I am on the bus and I just realized I forgot to brush
my teeth.
08.37: Lovely!
10.38: Guess who isn’t a prefect?
10.40: Is it you?
10.42: Yes.
10.43: WOOOHOOOOOO! *streamers*
10.44: Your support means the world to me.
13.01: You will always be PREFECT to me!
13.05: Um, thanks?
13.06: Geddit?
13.09: Yes!
10
13.11: HAHAHAHAHA. Suzanne says I shouldn’t laugh
because maybe you wanted to be prefect.
13.29: You told her?
13.33: Yeah! I told her you def didnt want to be prefect and
I’m laughing in a good way.
13.35: Sz says all of the best people she knows aren’t
prefects.
13.40: Cads?
13.46: I def didn’t want to be prefect. Mum wanted me to be
though.
13.48: :(
13.49: We’ll be not prefects together xx
Thursday
13.19: Nikki has clocked that Suzanne is cool. She tried to
get her to sit with her at lunch.
13.25: Successfully?
13.27: No. Suzanne said she was good with me. Nikki said,
you must have noticed she’s a loser by now. Sz was like,
wtf? and Nikki goes ‘SERIOUSLY. I’m SAVING YOU.’
13.28: Bitch!!! Are you OK?
13.29. No. I’m crying in the toilets.
13.30: Want me to call you?
13.31: No.
13.31: Yes please.
Friday
09.01: What did you have for breakfast this morning?
09.02: Um, cereal?
09.03: Mum made me pancakes. I WIN!
13.12: Idea. How about I bring Suzanne with me when I
come to yours after school? Then you can meet her!
13.42: Sure, OK.
11
13.43: Yay! You’ll love her, she’s amazing. We’ll come
straight over, probs be at yours at about 4. 13.58: See
you then x 15.33: WEEKEND!!!
12
3
I’d planned to make it to my house before Rosie and Suzanne
arrived, mainly because I tried to keep the amount of time Rosie
saw me in my school uniform to an absolute minimum. She was
lucky enough to have an ordinary uniform – black skirt, white
shirt, black cardigan – and she had a tendency to laugh in my face
if she ever caught me in mine.
So it was just my luck that I was pushing my key into my
front-door lock when I heard the stamp of feet behind me and
then there was Rosie, throwing herself up against the still-closed
door and pushing her face right up close to mine.
‘Hello!’ she shouted, all smiles.
I had to laugh. ‘Hi,’ I said, twisting the key and opening the
door. ‘Any chance I can persuade you to stay out here while I go
change?’
‘Nope!’ Rosie said, pushing herself in front of me and
blocking the doorway. ‘It’s too late. We’ve both seen you now.’
She gestured behind me. ‘Suze, didn’t I tell you it would be the
greenest thing you’ve ever seen?’
I glanced behind me at the new girl, who was smiling. When
our eyes met, she grinned. ‘Hi!’ She was effortlessly friendly, her
voice upbeat and her face open. ‘I’m Suzanne.’
‘Obviously you’re Suzanne,’ Rosie said, rolling her eyes
before turning and heading into my house, leaving the two of us
on the doorstep. ‘Who else would you be?’
‘Hi,’ I said, trying to match Suzanne’s bright tone and failing.
‘Um. I guess you know I’m Caddy.’
She nodded. ‘Your house is really nice.’
13
‘Thanks,’ I said, as if it was something I had any control over.
I stepped into the house and she followed me, moving aside so I
could close the door.
Rosie reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, holding three
red cans. ‘You drink Coke, right?’ she said to Suzanne, waving
one at her.
Suzanne glanced at me, as if wondering if she should ask
permission.
‘Don’t mind her,’ I said, taking one of the cans for myself and
starting up the stairs. ‘She thinks this is her house too.’
‘It basically is.’ Rosie sounded far more cheerful than she
usually did after her first week back at school. By this point the
previous year, she’d collapsed on my living-room sofa and
refused to move.
In my room, Rosie pulled over my beanbag chair and sank into
it, for some reason choosing not to take her usual spot beside me
on my bed. Suzanne sat down next to her, her eyes flitting around.
I saw her glance land on my battered poster from the old Disney
film The Rescuers – a present from Tarin several years ago as a
nod to a treasured childhood joke – and a bemused smile skittered
across her face.
I tried to study her surreptitiously, this possible pretender to
my best-friend throne, who was so not who I’d expected from
Rosie describing her over the phone.
This was probably because, for all her talking over the last few
days – and there had been a lot – she’d neglected to mention what
for me was the most noteworthy thing: Suzanne was gorgeous.
Not just pretty, or cute, or any other standard word, but full-on
stunning. It wasn’t just the blonde hair – far more natural looking
than mine, to the point where it might even be natural – or the
blue eyes, or even the fact that she was model slim. It was also
her make-up and even the way she carried herself. I felt daunted
14
by her, painfully aware of my unbrushed hair and my tendency
to slouch, not to mention my hideous caricature of a school
uniform. No wonder Rosie had described her as so confident.
How could she not be, when she looked like that?
‘So how do you like Brighton so far?’ I asked, choosing the
easiest question to start with and hoping it would be enough to
fulfil my duty as friend of a friend.
‘It’s great,’ Suzanne said, looking back at me and smiling. ‘I
was saying to Roz, you’re both so lucky to have grown up here.’
I registered the use of ‘Roz’ and bit down on the inside of my
lip to stop myself making a face.
‘I told her it’s overrated,’ Rosie said.
‘You’ve got a beach!’ Suzanne replied with a laugh.
‘A pebble beach!’
‘There are worse places to grow up,’ I said. ‘You’re from
Reading, right?’
Suzanne raised her hand and wiggled it from side to side. ‘Sort
of. From when I was eight.’ Anticipating my next question, she
added, ‘I was born in Manchester.’
That explained the not-Southern tinge to her accent.
‘So how come you moved here?’ I asked. ‘Was it, like, a job
thing?’
Her brow crinkled in confusion.
‘I mean, did your parents get a new job or something?’ I
elaborated.
‘Oh.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘Actually it’s my aunt that I
live with.’
‘Oh,’ I said, not sure what to say next, apart from the obvious.
I glanced at Rosie to see if this was news to her. Her unconcerned
expression suggested not.
15
Another silence. I waited, hoping she’d reveal a bit more, but
she said nothing. Rosie, apparently enjoying watching the two of
us fumble for conversation, raised her eyebrows at me. I could
see the ghost of a grin on her face.
‘What does your aunt do?’ I asked finally.
‘She’s a chef,’ Suzanne said, brightening. ‘She owns one of
the cafes on Queen’s Road. Muddles?’
‘Oh yeah, I know it.’ I’d walked past it once with my parents
and my mother had commented that Muddles was a stupid name
for a cafe. Dad, in a jaunty mood, had said it was a cosy name.
We hadn’t gone in.
‘What do your parents do?’ Suzanne asked me.
‘My dad’s a doctor,’ I said, ‘a consultant at the hospital. My
mum’s a communications manager for the Samaritans.’
Her eyebrows lifted, as people’s tended to do when I
mentioned my parents’ respective careers. People assumed a lot
when they heard ‘doctor’ or ‘the Samaritans’. Words like ‘saint’
and ‘hero’ and ‘selfless’ and ‘if only everyone was like them’
tended to crop up.
The truth was more along the lines of a distracted and rarely
glimpsed father and a world-weary, seen-it-all-before mother.
From the evidence, they were great at their jobs. But that didn’t
necessarily make them golden human beings.
‘What kind of consultant is your dad?’ Suzanne asked, the
kind of question people asked when they either couldn’t think of
anything else to say or just wanted to be polite.
‘A & E,’ I said.
She looked instantly impressed. ‘Wow.’
‘It’s not as interesting as it sounds,’ I said.
‘All the best hospital shows are set in A & E,’ Suzanne said
knowledgeably. ‘He must have some great stories.’
16
‘If he does, I never hear them,’ I said. ‘He works a lot. Like,
night shifts and stuff? So I don’t really see him much.’
Suzanne made a face, no doubt because she had no response
to this as much as out of sympathy. There was another awkward
pause, at which point Rosie finally took pity on us both and spoke
up. ‘Caddy’s parents are great.’ I looked at her, surprised. ‘You
know those people and you’re like, oh yeah, you’ve got how to
be human figured out.’
I laughed. ‘Um, OK.’
‘Seriously.’ Rosie raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I hope you’re
grateful.’ She turned to Suzanne. ‘When I was eleven, my baby
sister Tansy died –’ Suzanne’s eyes went wide at this – ‘and my
mum had trouble coping, so I came to live with Caddy for a few
weeks. So I know.’
‘Rosie,’ I said, ‘that’s very heavy information to just drop into
a sentence.’ Suzanne was still looking stunned.
‘Your baby sister died?’ she echoed. ‘That’s horrible.’
‘Yeah, it was,’ Rosie said, and even though her voice was
casual I saw her shoulders square and her jaw tighten. These are
things you only notice on a best friend. ‘But the point of the story
was Caddy’s parents.’ ‘Roz,’ I said.
‘That’s horrible,’ Suzanne said again, her voice quiet. She was
looking at the floor.
‘Do you have any horrible life stories to tell?’ Rosie asked.
Her voice was cheerful, but it had a definite edge. For all her
deliberate nonchalance, I knew she didn’t like talking about
Tansy. ‘Caddy calls them Significant Life Events.’
‘Roz.’ My voice was sharper this time. She looked at me,
pulling a deliberate innocent face. Sometimes I felt like I was her
parent. Reining in Rosie.
Suzanne looked from me to Rosie, clearly wondering if she
should speak. Finally she said, ‘What counts as significant?’
17
‘Moving house probably counts,’ I said, trying to be generous.
‘Nothing significant has ever happened to me. I’m dull.’
Suzanne looked at me a little oddly, and I realized too late that
describing myself as dull on first meeting probably wasn’t a good
way to make friends. I opened my mouth to try to redeem myself,
but my mind had gone blank. Oh well, I thought, resigning myself
to her inevitable opinion of me. She’s only Rosie’s school friend.
Who cares what she thinks?
18
4
‘So. Got a boyfriend yet?’
Tarin arrived home on Sunday evening, tanned and beaming,
sporting presents and a new tattoo (three birds in flight on the side
of her left wrist). She’d been on a last-minute holiday with her
own boyfriend, Adam, in Turkey and so had missed both my
birthday and my first week of school.
‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘I promise that I will text you if that
happens.’
‘When,’ Tarin corrected promptly. ‘When it happens.’
I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. It was hard not to smile
around my sister when she was in a good mood. Erratic and
vibrant, Tarin filled any room she was in. My most vivid
memories of her from my childhood were whirlwinds of colour
and excitement, punctured by impenetrable clouds of darkness,
when nothing would bring her out of herself. She was calmer and
more stable now, six years on from her diagnosis, but she was
still Tarin, sister extraordinaire.
‘Here,’ she said, holding out a bag to me. ‘It’s not wrapped,
sorry. Happy birthday.’
The bag contained a scarf: purple and silver, soft, beautiful. I
pulled the material gently through my fingers. ‘It’s gorgeous.
Thanks.’ I lifted the scarf to my neck and tried to figure out how
to wind it the way she always wore hers.
‘Sixteen’s a big one,’ Tarin said. ‘I can’t believe you’re
sixteen. In my head you’re still five years old.’
‘Oh, great, thanks.’ I had no idea what I was doing with the
scarf. I leaned back to check my reflection to see if my attempt
19
looked as stupid as it felt. My whole head seemed to have
suddenly ballooned as my hair – a constant source of frustration
– had bunched up underneath it. Said hair, of the slightly bushy
variety, was artificially brightened with highlights, from the
mousy colour it had dulled to from the blonde I was born with.
No length seemed to distract from the bushiness; short made me
look like I had a mane (and not in a good way), while long just
gave me more to try and tame. As with so much else in my life,
I’d settled for the that’ll-do end of the spectrum and kept it
shoulder-length. Usually I tied it back from my face and tried to
forget about it.
I sighed. After I’d pulled my hair from under it, the scarf had
become lopsided. I flicked it in annoyance and Tarin leaned
across to adjust it for me. Tarin had a tendency to act more like a
parent than a sister, given the eight-year age difference and my
general lack of worldliness.
‘Has Rosie got a boyfriend?’
‘Not a proper one. She had a thing with some guy in her form,
but that was only a few weeks.’
‘I guess she’s got more options than you.’ She made a mocksympathetic face. ‘You poor thing, all cooped up in that
oestrogen prison.’
I laughed. ‘It’s not that bad.’
‘You’re being deprived. It’s an outrage. I told Mum and Dad,
I said to them, don’t make Caddy grow up without boys. It’s a
cruelty. But did they listen? Noooo.’
Tarin had gone to normal school, and by normal I mean
neither single-sex nor private. Nobody had made Tarin wear a
bright green blazer and knee-high socks. She’d been free to wear
too much make-up and thread ribbons through her hair.
20
‘I’ve decided that I’m definitely going to get one this year
though,’ I said, hoping that saying it out loud would somehow
make it happen. ‘A boyfriend.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Tarin’s face broke into a grin. ‘You’ve decided?’
I nodded. ‘That’s my goal for the year. And I’m going to have
sex. And do something significant.’
‘Don’t all three of those count as the same goal?’ she asked.
‘Three birds, one stone? One boy to unlock the set of
achievements? With his penis of significance?’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘I am. Well spotted.’ She gave my hair an affectionate tug.
‘So what are you going to do to make this happen?’ I
paused.
‘Because it’s great that you’ve decided that that’s what you
want, but you should be trying to make it happen as well.’ This
was easy for her to say. Tarin never had to try to make anything
happen.
‘Mmm,’ I said, starting to regret bringing it up.
‘Not that I think you’ll have any trouble,’ she added quickly.
‘Look, maybe you should do more out-of-school stuff. Meet new
people.’
‘Speaking of new people,’ I said, seeing my opportunity to
change the subject and taking it, ‘there’s a new girl in Rosie’s
form.’
‘Yeah?’ Tarin had taken my scarf and wound it around her
own neck, fluffing out her light brown hair over it. It suited her
far better than it did me.
‘Rosie loves her,’ I said.
‘Does she?’ She gave me a look, a small, knowing smile
dancing on her face. ‘Are you jealous?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
21
She laughed. ‘No, but I know you. You and Rosie are as
inseparable as it is possible to be, and you managed it being in
different schools for ten years. Now a new girl arrives right near
the end of your educational chapter and Rosie likes her?’ She
made an exaggerated ‘oh dear’ face, then grinned. ’New people
are always exciting. I wouldn’t worry. It’s the novelty, you
know? Have you met her?’
‘Yeah, on Friday.’
‘What’s she like?’
I hesitated. ‘Nice.’
She made an incorrect buzzer noise. ‘Try again with a word
that means something.’
‘She’s very confident. But in a relaxed kind of way, not in a
showy way.’ I realized as I was speaking that this was close to
identical to how Rosie had first described her over the phone.
‘And funny. Sarcastic kind of funny. Oh, and she’s really pretty.’
‘Sounds unbearable.’
I had to laugh. ‘She is much cooler than me.’
Tarin slapped my arm. ‘Don’t say things like that! As if cool
matters.’ Only people to whom cool comes easy, like Tarin
herself, ever say things like this. ‘Did you like her?’
I thought about it. ‘I didn’t not like her.’
‘Did you want to like her?’
‘Not really.’
‘Maybe give her a chance at least? If Rosie likes her, she must
be all right. And remember, it’s only one week into the school
year. They might not even be talking in a few weeks’ time.’
I tried to remind myself of this later that evening, when I
clicked on to Facebook and rolled my finger over my laptop’s
touchpad to look at my feed. I let my eyes follow the updates
without really taking them in until they snagged on one. Rosie
Caron and Suzanne Watts are now friends.
22
My chest gave a kick of completely irrational jealousy. Of
course they’d be friends on Facebook. In fact it was kind of a
surprise that it had taken this long. But still. I moved the cursor
to hover over Suzanne’s name, hesitated, and then clicked. This
turned out to be pointless, as I could see absolutely nothing of her
information, except her profile picture. I leaned forward to look
at it more closely. She was with a girl and a boy, all of them
dressed in an unfamiliar school uniform, and they were clinging
on to each other in an overly exaggerated embrace. The photo had
captured them mid-laugh.
I clicked back to Rosie’s page and saw that Suzanne had
posted a video on her wall. Feeling ridiculously nervous, I clicked
on it. It was a puppy trying to get out of a tent, defeated by its
own short legs. It was a cute video, but it made me relax because
I knew – and Suzanne clearly didn’t know – that Rosie didn’t
really like dogs. She should have chosen a video of a cat.
Feeling brighter, I shut my laptop and went to the bathroom to
brush my teeth. I had ten years on this girl, and however
interesting or cool she was, time was surely the biggest upper
hand of them all.
23
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sara Barnard lives in Brighton and does all her best writing on
trains. She loves books, book people and book things. She has
been writing ever since she was too small to reach the ‘on’
switch on the family Amstrad computer. She gets her love of
words from her dad, who made sure she always had books to
read and introduced her to the wonders of second-hand
bookshops at a young age. Sara is trying to visit every country in
Europe, and has managed to reach thirteen with her best friend.
She has also lived in Canada and worked in India.
Twitter: @SaraMegan
Instagram: @saramegan87
Blog: whispersfromthesidelines.wordpress.com
THE GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT
BY MONICA HESSE
Amsterdam, 1943
Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering soughtafter black-market goods to paying customers, her nights
hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned
parents, and every waking moment mourning her
boyfriend, who was killed on the front line when the
Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as
a small act of rebellion. But one day Hanneke gets a very
unusual request. One of her regular customers asks her to
find a girl. A girl who has disappeared from the secret room
in her house. A Jewish girl . . .
As she searches for clues Hanneke is drawn into a
dangerous web of lies, secrets and mysteries. Can she find
the runaway before the Nazis do?
Meticulously researched, intricately plotted and
beautifully written, The Girl in the Blue Coat is an
extraordinarily gripping novel from a bright new voice in
YA fiction.
[preface]
A long time before Bas died, we had a pretend argument
about whose fault it was that he’d fallen in love with me.
It’s your fault, he’d told me. Because you’re lovable. I’d
told him he was wrong. That it was lazy to blame his falling
in love on me. Irresponsible, really.
I remember everything about this conversation. It was in
his parents’ sitting room, and we were listening to the
family’s new radio while I quizzed him for a geometry
exam neither of us thought was important. The American
singer Judy Garland was singing “You Made Me Love
You.” That was how the conversation began. Bas said I’d
made him love me. I made fun of him because I didn’t want
him to know how fast my heart was pounding to hear him
say the words love and you in the same sentence.
Then he said it was my fault, also, that he wanted to kiss
me. Then I said it was his fault if I let him. Then his older
brother walked in the room and said it was both of our faults
if he got sick to his stomach listening to us.
It was only later that day, when I was walking home—
back when I could walk home without worrying about being
stopped by soldiers or missing curfew or being arrested—
that I realized I’d never said it back. The first time he said
he loved me, and I forgot to say it back.
I should have. If I’d known what would happen and what
I would find out about love and war, I would have made
sure to say it then.
That’s my fault.
27
January 1943
Chapter 1
Tuesday
“Hallo, sweetheart. What do you have there?
Something for me?”
I stop because the soldier’s face is young and pretty, and
because his voice has a wink in it, and because I bet he
would make me laugh during an afternoon at the movies.
That’s a lie.
I stop because the soldier might be a good contact,
because he might be able to get the things that we can’t get
anymore, because his dresser drawers are probably filled
with row after row of chocolate bars and socks that don’t
have holes in the toes.
That’s also not really the truth.
But sometimes I ignore the whole truth, because it’s
easier to pretend I’m making decisions for rational reasons.
It’s easier to pretend I have a choice.
I stop because the soldier’s uniform is green. That’s the
only reason I stop. Because his uniform is green, and that
means I have no choice at all.
“That’s a lot of packages for a pretty girl.”
His Dutch is slightly accented, but I’m surprised he
speaks it so well. Some Green Police don’t speak it at all,
and they’re annoyed when we’re not fluent in German, as if
we should have been preparing our entire lives for the day
when they invaded our country.
28
I park my bicycle but don’t dismount. “It’s exactly the
right number of packages, I think.”
“What have you got in them?” He leans over my
handlebars, one hand grazing into the basket attached to the
front.
“Wouldn’t you like to see? Wouldn’t you like to open all
my packages?” I giggle, and then lower my eyelashes so he
won’t see how practiced this line is. With the way I’m
standing, my dress has risen above my knee, and the soldier
notices. It’s navy, already tighter than it should be, frayed
at the hem, and several years old, from before the war. I
shift my weight a little so the hemline rides even higher,
now halfway up my goose-bumped thigh.
This interaction would feel worse if he were older, if he
were wrinkled, if he had stained teeth or a sagging belly. It
would be worse, but I would flirt the same anyway. I have
a dozen times before.
He leans in closer. The Herengracht is murky and
fishstinking behind him, and I could push him into this canal
and ride halfway home on my disgrace of a secondhand
bicycle before he paddled himself out. It’s a game I like to
play with every Green Police who stops me. How could I
punish you, and how far would I get before you caught me?
“This is a book I’m bringing home to my mother.” I point
to the first parcel wrapped in paper. “And these are the
potatoes for our supper. And this is the sweater I’ve just
picked up from mending.”
“Hoe heet je?” he asks. He wants to know my name, and
he’s asked it in the informal, casual way, how a confident
boy would ask a bucktoothed girl her name at a party, and
29
this is good news because I’d much rather he be interested
in me than the packages in my basket.
“Hanneke Bakker.” I would lie, but there’s no point now
that we all carry mandatory identification papers. “What’s
your name, soldier?”
He puffs out his chest when I call him soldier. The young
ones are still in love with their uniforms. When he moves, I
see a flash of gold around his neck. “And what’s in your
locket?” I ask.
His grin falters as his hand flies to the pendant now
dangling just below his collar. The locket is gold, shaped
like a heart, probably containing a photograph of an
applefaced German girl who has promised to remain
faithful back in Berlin. It was a gamble to ask about it, but
one that always turns out well if I’m right.
“Is it a photograph of your mother? She must love you a
lot to give you such a pretty necklace.”
His face flushes pink as he tucks the chain back under his
starched collar.
“Is it of your sister?” I press on. “Your little pet dog?”
It’s a difficult balance, to sound the right amount of naive.
My words need to have enough innocence in them that he
can’t justify getting angry with me, but enough sharpness
that he’d rather get rid of me than keep me here and
interrogate me about what I’m carrying. “I haven’t seen you
before,” I say. “Are you stationed on this street every day?”
“I don’t have time for silly girls like you. Go home,
Hanneke.”
When I pedal away, my handlebars only barely shake. I
was mostly telling him the truth about the packages. The
first three do hold a book, a sweater, and a few potatoes. But
30
underneath the potatoes are four coupons’ worth of
sausages, bought with a dead man’s rations, and underneath
those are lipsticks and lotions, bought with another dead
man’s rations, and underneath those are cigarettes and
alcohol, bought with money that Mr. Kreuk, my boss,
handed me this morning for just that purpose. None of it
belongs to me.
Most people would say I trade in the black market, the
illicit underground exchange of goods. I prefer to think of
myself as a finder. I find things. I find extra potatoes, meat,
and lard. In the beginning I could find sugar and chocolate,
but those things have been harder recently, and I can only
get them sometimes. I find tea. I find bacon. The wealthy
people of Amsterdam stay plump because of me. I find the
things we have been made to do without, unless you know
where to look.
My last question to the soldier, about whether this street
is his new post—I wish he’d answered that one. Because if
he’s stationed on the corner every day now, I’ll have to
either consider being friendly to him or change my route.
My first delivery this morning is Miss Akkerman, who
lives with her grandparents in one of the old buildings down
by the museums. Miss Akkerman is the lotions and lipstick.
Last week it was perfume. She’s one of the few women I’ve
met who still care so much about these things, but. sShe told
me once that she’s hoping her boyfriend will propose before
her next birthday, and people have spent money for stranger
reasons.
She answers the door with her wet hair in pins. She must
have a date with Theo tonight.
31
“Hanneke! Come in while I get my purse.” She always
finds an excuse to invite me in. I think she gets bored here
during the day, alone with her grandparents, who talk too
loudly and smell like cabbage.
Inside the house is stuffy and dim. Miss Akkerman’s
grandfather sits at the breakfast table through the doorway.
“Who’s at the door?” he yells.
“It’s a delivery, Grandpa,” Miss Akkerman calls over her
shoulder.
“It’s who?”
“It’s for me.” She turns back to me and lowers her voice.
“Hanneke, you have to help me. Theo is coming over
tonight to ask my grandparents if I can move into his
apartment. I need to figure out what to wear. Stay right here;
I’ll show you my options.”
I can’t think of any dress that would make her
grandparents approve of her living with her boyfriend
before marriage, though I know this wouldn’t be the first
time thise war made a young couple reject tradition.
When Miss Akkerman comes back to the foyer, I pretend
to consider the two dresses she’s brought, but really I’m
watching the wall clock. I don’t have time for socializing.
After telling her to wear the gray one, I motion for her to
take the packages I’ve been holding since I arrived. “These
are yours. Would you like to make sure everything’s all
right?”
“I’m sure they’re fine. Stay for coffee?”
I don’t bother to ask if it’s real. The only way she would
have real coffee is if I’d brought it to her, and I hadn’t, so
when she says she has coffee, she means she has ground
acorns or twigs. Ersatz coffee.
32
The other reason I don’t stay is the same reason why I
don’t accept Miss Akkerman’s repeated offer to call her
Irene. Because I don’t want her to confuse this relationship
with friendship. Because I don’t want her to think that if one
day she can’t pay, it doesn’t matter.
“I can’t. I still have another delivery before lunch.”
“Are you sure? You could have lunch here—I’m already
going to make it—and then we could figure out just what to
do with my hair for tonight.”
It’s a strange relationship I have with my clients. They
think we’re comrades. They think we’re bound by the secret
that we’re doing something illegal together. “I always have
lunch at home with my parents,” I say.
“Of course, Hanneke.” She’s embarrassed for having
pushed too far. “I’ll see you later, then.”
[LI_SB]
Outside, it’s cloudy and overcast, Amsterdam winter,
as I ride my bicycle down our narrow, haphazard streets.
Amsterdam was built on canals. The country of Holland
is low, lower even than the ocean, and the farmers who
mucked it out centuries ago created an elaborate system
of waterways, just to keep citizens from drowning in the
North Sea. An old history teacher of mine used
to accompany that piece of our past with a popular saying:
“God made the world, but the Dutch made the
Netherlands.” He said it like a point of pride, but to me,
the saying was also a warning: “Don’t rely on anything
coming to save us. We’re all alone down here.”
Seventy-five kilometers to the south, at the start of the
occupation two and a half years ago, the Germans planes
bombed Rotterdam, killing nine hundred civilians and much
33
of the city’s architecture. Two days later, the Germans
arrived in Amsterdam by foot. We now have to put up with
their presence, but we got to keep our buildings. It’s a bad
trade-off. It’s all bad trade-offs these days, unless, like me,
you know how to mostly end up on the profitable side of
things.
My next customer, Mrs. Janssen, lives just a short ride
away in a large blue house where she used to live with her
husband and three sons, until one son moved to London, one
son moved to America, and one son, the baby of the family,
moved to the Dutch front lines, where two thousand Dutch
servicemen were killed when they tried but failed to protect
our borders as the country fell in five days’ time. We don’t
speak much of Jan anymore.
I wonder if he was near Bas, though, during the invasion.
I wonder this about everything now, trying to piece
together the last minutes of the boy I loved. Was he with
Bas, or did Bas die alone?
Mrs. Janssen’s husband disappeared last month, just
before she became a customer, and I’ve never asked any
more about that. He could have been an illegal worker with
the resistance, or he could have just been in the wrong place
at a bad time, or he could be not dead after all and instead
having high tea in England with his oldest son, but in any
case it’s none of my business. Mrs. Janssen is a new
customer. I’ve only delivered a few things to her. I knew
her son Jan a little bit. He was a surprise baby, born two
decades after his brothers, when the Janssens were already
stooped and gray. Jan was a nice boy.
34
Here, today, I decide Jan might have been near Bas when
the Germans stormed our country. Here, today, I’ll believe
that Bas didn’t die alone. It’s a more optimistic thought than
I usually allow myself to have.
Mrs. Janssen is waiting at the door for me, which makes
me irritated because if you were a German soldier assigned
to look for suspicious things, what would you think of an
old woman waiting for a strange girl on a bicycle?
“Good morning, Mrs. Janssen. You didn’t have to stand
out here for me. How are you?”
“I’m fine!” she shouts, like she’s reading lines in a play,
nervously touching the white curls escaping from her bun.
Her hair is always in a bun, and her glasses are always
slipping down her nose; her clothes always remind me of a
curtain or a sofa. “Won’t you come in?”
“I couldn’t get as much sausage as you wanted, but I do
have some,” I tell her once I’ve parked my bicycle and the
door is closed behind us. She moves slowly; she walks with
a cane now and rarely leaves the house anymore. She told
me she got the cane when Jan died. I don’t know if there’s
something physically wrong with her or if grief just broke
her and made her lame.
Inside, her front room looks more spacious than normal,
and it takes me a moment to figure out why. Normally,
between the china cabinet and the armchair, there is an
opklapbed, a small bed that looks like a bookcase but can
be folded out for sleeping when guests visit. I assume Mr.
Janssen made it, like he made all the things in their house.
Mama and I used to walk past his furniture store to admire
35
the window displays, but we never could have afforded
anything in it. I can’t imagine where the opklapbed has
gone. If Mrs. Janssen sold it so soon after her husband’s
disappearance, she must already be struggling with money,
which I won’t allow to be my concern unless it means she
can’t pay me.
“Coffee, Hanneke?” In front of me, Mrs. Janssen
disappears into the kitchen, so I follow. I plan to decline her
coffee offer, but she’s laid out two cups and her good china,
blue and white, the famous style from the city of Delft. The
table is heavy and maple.
“I have the sausage here if you want to—”
“Later,” she interrupts. “Later. First, we’ll have coffee,
and a stroopwafel, and we’ll talk.”
Next to her sits a dust-covered canister that smells like
the earth. Real coffee beans. I wonder how long she’s been
saving them. The stroopwafels, too. People don’t use their
bakery rations for fancy pastries; they use them for bread.
Then again, they don’t use them to feed black market
delivery girls, either, but here is Mrs. Janssen, pouring my
coffee into a porcelain cup and placing a stroopwafel on top
so that the waffle sandwich softens in the steam and the
sugary syrup inside oozes around the edges.
“Sit, Hanneke.”
“I’m not hungry,” I say, even as my stomach betrays me
with a growl.
I am hungry, but something makes me nervous with these
stroopwafels, and with how eager Mrs. Janssen is to have
me sit, and with the irregularity of the whole situation. Has
36
she called the Green Police and promised to deliver them a
black market worker? A woman desperate enough to sell
her husband’s opklapbed might do such a thing.
“Just for a minute?”
“I’m sorry, but I have a million other things to do today.”
She stares down at her beautifully set table. “My
youngest. Jan. These were his favorite. I used to have them
waiting when he came home from school. You were his
friend?” She smiles at me hopefully.
I sigh. She’s not dangerous; she’s just lonely. She misses
her son, and she wants to feed one of his old classmates his
after-school snack. This goes against all my rules, and the
pleading in her voice makes me uncomfortable. But it’s cold
outside, and the coffee is real, and despite what I just told
Mrs. Janssen about my millions of tasks, I actually have an
hour before my parents expect me for lunch. So I set the
parcel with sausage on the table, smooth down my hair, and
try to remember how to be a polite guest on a social call. I
knew how to do this once. Bas’s mother used to pour me
hot chocolate in her kitchen while Bas and I studied, and
then she would find excuses to keep checking in to make
sure we weren’t kissing.
“I haven’t had a stroopwafel in a while,” I say finally,
trying out my rustedy conversational skills. “My favorites
were always banketstaaf.”
“With the almond paste?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Mrs. Janssen’s coffee is scalding and strong, a soothing
anesthetic. It burns my throat, so I keep drinking it and don’t
37
even realize how much I’ve had until the cup is back on its
saucer and it’s half empty. Mrs. Janssen immediately fills it
to the top.
“The coffee’s good,” I tell her.
“I need your help.” Ah.
So the purpose of the coffee becomes clear. She’s given
me a present. Now she wants a favor. Too bad she didn’t
realize I don’t need to be buttered up. I work for money, not
kindness.
“I need your help finding something,” she says.
“What do you need? More meat? Kerosene?”
“I need your help finding a person.”
The cup freezes halfway to my lips, and for a second I
can’t remember whether I was picking it up or putting it
down.
“I need your help finding a person,” she says again,
because I still haven’t responded.
“I don’t understand.”
“Someone special to me.” She looks over my shoulder,
and I follow her line of vision to where her eyes are fixed
on a portrait of her family, hanging next to the pantry door.
“Mrs. Janssen.” I try to think of the right and polite way
to respond. Your husband is gone, is what I should tell her.
Your son is dead. Your other sons are not coming back. I
cannot find ghosts. I don’t have any ration coupons for a
replacement dead child.
“Mrs. Janssen, I don’t find people. I find things. Food.
Clothing.”
“I need you to find—”
38
“A person. You said. But if you want to find a person,
you need to call the police. Those are the kinds of finders
you want.”
“You.” She leans over the table. “Not the police. I need
you. I don’t know who else to ask.”
In the distance, the Westerkerk clock strikes; it’s half
past eleven. Now is when I should leave. “I have to go.” I
push my chair back from the table. “My mother will have
cooked lunch. Did you want to pay now for the sausage, or
have Mr. Kreuk add it to your account?”
She rises, too, but instead of seeing me to the door, she
grabs my hand. “Just look, Hanneke. Please. Just look
before you go.”
Because even I am not hardened enough to wrench my
hand away from an old woman, I follow her toward the
pantry and pause dutifully to look at the picture of her sons
on the wall. They’re in a row, three abreast, matching big
ears and knobby necks. But Mrs. Janssen doesn’t stop in
front of the photograph. Instead, she swings open the pantry
door. “This way.” She gestures for me to follow her.
Verdorie. Damn it, she’s crazier than I thought. We’re
going to sit in the darkness now, together among her canned
pickles, to commune with her dead son. She probably keeps
his clothes in here, packed in mothballs.
Inside, it’s like any other pantry: a shallow room with a
wall of spices and preserved goods, not as full as it would
have been before the war.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Janssen, but I don’t know—”
39
“Wait.” She reaches to the edge of the spice shelf and
unlatches a small hook I hadn’t noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Just a minute.” She fiddles with the latch. Suddenly, the
whole set of shelves swings out, revealing a dark space
behind the pantry, long and narrow, big enough to walk into,
too dark to see much.
“What is this?” I whisper.
“Hendrik built it for me,” she says. “When the children
were small. This closet was inefficient—deep and
sloping— so I asked if he would close off part of it for a
pantry and have the other part for storage.”
My eyes adjust to the dimness. We’re standing in the
space under the stairs. The ceiling grows lower, until, in the
back, it’s no more than a few feet off the ground. Toward
the front, there’s a shelf at eye level containing a halfburned candle, a comb, and a film magazine whose title I
recognize. Most of the tiny room is taken up by Mrs.
Janssen’s missing opklapbed, unfolded as if waiting for a
guest. A starpatterned quilt lies on top of it, and a single
pillow. There are no windows. When the secret door is
closed, only a slim crack of brightness would appear
underneath.
“Do you see?” She takes my hand again. “This is why I
cannot call the police. The police cannot find someone who
is not supposed to exist.”
“The missing person.”
“The missing girl is Jewish,” Mrs. Janssen says. “I need
you to find her before the Nazis do.” Chapter 2
40
Mrs. Janssen is still waiting for me to respond, standing
in the dark space, where the air is stale and smells faintly
of old potatoes.
“Hanneke?”
“You were hiding someone?” I can barely get the words
out as she re-latches the secret shelf, closes the pantry door
and leads me back to the table. I don’t know if I’m more
shocked or scared. I know this happens, that some of the
Jews who disappear are packed like winter linens in other
people’s basements rather than relocated to work camps.
But it’s too dangerous of a thing to ever admit out loud.
Mrs. Janssen is nodding at my question. “I was.”
“In here? You were hiding someone in here? For how
long?”
“Where should I begin?” She picks up her napkin,
twisting it between her hands.
I don’t want her to begin at all. Ten minutes ago I was
worried Mrs. Janssen might have called someone to arrest
me; now I know she is the one who could be arrested. The
punishment for hiding people is imprisonment, a cold, damp
cell in Scheveningen, where I’ve heard of people
disappearing for months without even getting hearings. The
punishment for being a person in hiding—an onderduiker—
is immediate deportation.
“Never mind,” I say quickly. “Never mind. I don’t need
to hear anything. I’ll just go.”
“Why don’t you sit down again?” she pleads. “I’ve been
waiting all morning for you.” She holds up the pitcher of
coffee. “More? You can have as much as you like. Just sit.
If you don’t help me, I’ll have to find someone else.”
41
Now I’m conflicted, standing in the middle of the
kitchen. I don’t want her bribe of coffee. But I’m rooted to
the spot. It occurs to me that I shouldn’t leave, not without
knowing more of the story. If Mrs. Janssen tries to find
someone else, she could be putting herself in danger, and
me, too.
“Tell me what happened,” I say finally.
“My husband’s business partner,” Mrs. Janssen begins,
the words spilling out in a rush. “My husband’s business
partner was a good man. Mr. Roodveldt. David. He worked
with Hendrik for ten years. He had a wife, Rose, and she
was so shy—she had a lisp and it made her self-conscious—
but she could knit the most beautiful things. They had two
daughters. Lea, who had just turned twelve and was the
family pet. And the older daughter. Fifteen, independent,
always off with her friends. Mirjam.” Her throat catches at
the last name, and she swallows before continuing.
“The Roodveldts were Jewish. Not very observant, and
in the beginning, it seemed that would make a difference. It
didn’t, of course. David told Hendrik they would be fine.
They knew a woman in the country who was going to take
them in. That fell through when the woman got too scared,
though, and in July, after the big razzia, when so many Jews
were taken, David came to Hendrik and said he and his
family needed help going into hiding.”
“And Hendrik brought them here?” I ask.
“No. He didn’t want to put me in danger. He brought
them to the furniture shop. He built the Roodveldts a secret
room behind a false wall in the wood shop. I didn’t know.”
42
“You didn’t know?” I can’t imagine my own parents
being able to keep such a secret from each other.
“I knew Hendrik was spending more time in the shop. I
thought he was just working longer hours because David
was no longer around to assist him. I thought the Roodveldts
had gone to the safe house in the country. I didn’t know that
all of them were right there, in hiding.”
“When did he tell you?”
“He never told me. Last month I was home alone when I
heard knocking at my door. Frantic knocking; it was after
curfew. I thought Hendrik had forgotten his key, but when
I opened the door, there was this girl, this pale girl, wearing
a blue coat. She’d grown so much. I hadn’t seen her in a few
years, and I wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t
introduced herself. She told me my husband had been
hiding them, but now she needed a new safe space. She said
everyone else was dead.”
“Mirjam Roodveldt.”
Mrs. Janssen nods. “She was shaking, she was so scared.
She said the Nazis had come to the factory that night and
gone straight to the wood shop. Someone betrayed Hendrik,
an employee or customer. Hendrik wouldn’t show them the
hiding space. He pretended he had no idea what they were
talking about. Because he wouldn’t speak, the officers
began threatening him. And David heard. And he tried to
help. But the officers had guns.”
She gulps in a breath. “When the shooting was done,
Hendrik was dead, and David, and Rose, and Lea. Only
Mirjam managed to escape.”
43
It must have been complete chaos. I’ve heard of people
imprisoned, taken away and never returned. But four
people, including a woman and a child, shot dead in cold
blood?
“How did Mirjam escape?” I ask. “They shot everyone
else. How would one young girl manage to escape from
Nazis with guns?”
“The bathroom. The shop has a restroom in the front. The
Roodveldts could use it once the sales floor was closed.
Mirjam had just gone in to get ready for bed when the Nazis
came, and she ran out the front door when she heard the
gunshots, to the closest safe place she could think of. My
house. That was three weeks ago. I was hiding her until last
night.”
“What happened last night?”
Mrs. Janssen reaches into the pocket of her sweater and
pulls out a folded slip of paper. “I wrote everything down
so I would have the timeline exactly right for you.”
She traces the first line with her index finger. “She was
here yesterday at noon, because I went in to bring her some
bread and a copy of Het Parool. She liked to read the news
of the underground, over and over again, memorizing even
the classified advertisements.”
“Are you sure it was noon?”
“I’d just heard the Westerkerk strike, and people outside
had left for their lunch hours.” She looks back down at the
paper to find her place again. “She was here at a quarter past
four, because I went in to warn her that Christoffel, my
errand boy, was going to drop something off, and so she
would need to be still. She was here at five thirty, because I
44
asked her if she wanted some dinner; she told me she had a
headache and was going to lie down. Right after, my
neighbor Mrs. Veenstra asked me to come over. Her son,
Koos, hadn’t been home, and she was scared for him. After
I sat with her for an hour, Koos came up the street. His
bicycle had lost a tire; he walked it twenty-five kilometers.
I went home and called out to Mirjam to ask if she was
feeling better. She didn’t answer. I assumed she’d fallen
asleep. A while later, I opened the door to see if I could
bring her anything.”
“She was gone?”
“Vanished. Her bed was empty. Her coat was gone. Her
shoes were gone. She was gone.”
“What time was it by then?”
“Around ten. After curfew. Sometime between five
thirty, when Mirjam said she was going to lie down, and ten,
she disappeared, and there is no explanation.”
Finished with her story, she refolds the paper and starts
to put it back in her pocket before handing it to me instead.
There are matches near the burners on Mrs. Janssen’s stove.
I fetch one now, strike it against the box, and let Mrs.
Janssen’s penciled sleuthing burn into sulfur and ash.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“What are you doing, keeping written records of the girl
you’ve been illegally hiding?”
She rubs her forehead. “I didn’t think of that. I don’t
know these rules. It’s why I need your help, Hanneke.”
The Westerkerk chimes again in the background.
Another quarter hour has passed. Before, I was using the
45
time as an excuse to leave, but now it really is getting late.
I fold my arms over my chest. “You were visiting with a
neighbor for an hour. Couldn’t Mirjam have walked out
then?”
“Mrs. Veenstra lives right across the street. We sat on her
steps and faced my house; it wasn’t too cold yesterday.
Mirjam couldn’t have left through the front door without me
seeing her.”
“You have a back door?” I shouldn’t be getting her hopes
up by asking questions like this, when I’m not planning to
help her. But the situation she’s described is strange and
unbelievable, and I keep feeling like she must be explaining
it wrong.
“The rear door doesn’t close properly—it hasn’t for
years. I used to get so mad at Hendrik; to think of a furniture
maker not making the time to fix his own door. Finally last
year I got fed up with asking and I installed a latch myself.
When I noticed Mirjam was gone, I checked it. It was still
closed. She couldn’t have left through the back entrance and
closed a latch on the inside of the door.”
“A window?” It sounds unlikely even as I’m saying it.
This neighborhood is wealthy, the kind of place people
would notice unusual things like girls climbing out
windows.
“Not a window. Don’t you see? She had no way to leave.
And no reason to. This was the last safe place for her. But
she can’t have been discovered, either. If the Nazis had
come to take her, they would have taken me, too.”
46
There has to be a rational explanation. Mrs. Janssen must
have turned away for a few minutes at Mrs. Veenstra’s and
not seen the girl leave. Or maybe she has the timing wrong,
and the girl disappeared while Mrs. Janssen was taking an
afternoon nap.
The explanation doesn’t matter, really. I can’t help her,
no matter how sad her story is. It’s too dangerous. Survival
first. That’s my war motto. After Bas, it might be my life
motto. Survival first, survival only. I used to be a careless
person, and look where it got me. Now I transport black
market goods, but only because it feeds me and my family.
I flirt with German soldiers, but only because it saves me.
Finding a missing girl does nothing for me at all.
From outside the kitchen, I hear the front door squeaks
open, and then a young male voice call out. “Hallo?”
Farther away, the sound of a dog barking. Who is here? The
Gestapo? The NSB? We hate the Gestapo, and the Green
Police, but we hate the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging
most of all. The Dutch Nazis, who have betrayed their own
people.
Mrs. Janssen’s eyes widen until she places the voice.
“Christoffel, I’m in the kitchen,” she calls out. “I forgot he
was coming back today,” she whispers to me.
“Pick up your coffee. Behave normally.”
Christoffel the errand boy has curly blond hair and big
blue eyes and the tender skin of someone who hasn’t been
shaving long.
“Mrs. Janssen?” He fumbles with his hat in his hands,
uncomfortable to have interrupted us. “I’m here for the
opklapbed? This is the time you said?”
47
“Yes, of course.” She begins to rise, but Christoffel
gestures for her to stay seated.
“I can manage on my own. I have a cart, and a friend
waiting outside to help.” He nods toward the window,
where a tall, stout boy waves from the street.
When he disappears for his cart and his friend, Mrs.
Janssen sees my alarmed face and reassures me. “Not that
bed. Not Mirjam’s. He’s taking the one in Hendrik’s office.
I barely go in that room anymore. I asked Christoffel if he
could find a buyer, and I was going to use the money to help
support Mirjam.”
“Now?”
“Now I’ll use the money to pay you to help me.” I’m
shaking my head in protest, but she cuts me off. “You have
to find her, Hanneke. My older sons—I may never see them
again. My youngest son is dead, my husband died trying to
protect Mirjam’s family, and her family died trying to
protect him. I have no one now, and neither does she.
Mirjam and I must be each other’s family. Don’t let me lose
her. Please.”
I’m saved from having to respond by the squeaking
wheels of Christoffel’s pushcart, to which he and his friend
have lashed Mrs. Janssen’s other opklapbed. It’s more
ornate than the one in the pantry, the wood smooth and
varnished and still smelling faintly of lemon furniture oil.
“Mrs. Janssen? I’m leaving now.”
“Wait,” I tell him. “Mrs. Janssen, maybe you don’t need
to sell this bed now. Wait a day to think about it.” It’s my
way of telling her I’m not going to be able to agree to this
proposition.
48
“No. I’m selling it now,” she says definitively. “I have
to. Christoffel, how much do I owe you for your trouble in
picking it up?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Janssen. I’m happy to do it.”
“I insist.” She reaches for her pocketbook on the table
and begins to count out money from a small coin purse. “Oh
dear. I thought I had—”
“It’s not necessary,” Christoffel insists. He is blushing
again and looks to me, stricken, for help.
“Mrs. Janssen,” I say softly. “Christoffel has other
deliveries. Why don’t we let him go?”
She stops searching through her pocketbook and folds it
closed, looking embarrassed. Once Christoffel leaves, she
sinks back to her chair. She looks tired and old. “Will you
help me?” she asks.
I drain the rest of my cold coffee. What outcome does
she think I can deliver? I wouldn’t know where to start.
Even if Mirjam managed to escape, how far could a
fifteenyear-old girl with a yellow Jodenster on her clothing
get? I don’t need to take Mrs. Janssen’s money to know
what will happen to a girl like Mirjam, if it hasn’t happened
already: She’ll be captured, and she’ll be relocated to a labor
camp in Germany or Poland, the type from which nobody
has yet to return. But how did she get out in the first place?
There has to be a rational explanation, I tell myself
again. People don’t disappear into thin air.
But that’s a lie, actually. People disappear into thin air
every day during this occupation. Hundreds of people, taken
from their homes.
How can she expect me to find just one?
49
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Monica Hesse is the author of YA sci-fi novels Stray and
Burn (Hot Key). She is also a feature writer for the
Washington Post. She has appeared on NBC, CNN, FOX and
other TV channels. She hosts a weekly Washington Post chat,
Web Hostess, about the culture of the Internet, and lives
in Washington, DC with her husband and their dog.
Twitter: @MonicaHesse
YOU KNOW ME WELL
BY NINA LACOUR & DAVID LEVITHAN
Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire
year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their
paths outside of class have never crossed. That is until Kate
spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a
wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away
from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love
with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best
friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.
When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how
important they will become to each other – and how, in a
very short time, they will know each other better than any
of the people who are supposed to know them more.
You Know Me Well is a deeply honest story about navigating
the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time.
SATURDAY
Chapter One
Right now, my parents think I’m sleeping on the couch at my
best friend Ryan’s house, safely tucked into a suburban
silence. At the same time, Ryan’s parents think he’s in the top
bunk in my bedroom, slumbering peacefully after a slow night
of video games and TV. In reality, we’re on the Castro, at a
club called Happy Happy, kicking it up at the gaygantuan
kickoff party for San Francisco’s very own Pride Week. The
whole spectrum is in attendance tonight, breathing in the
rainbow air and dancing to the rainbow sounds. Ryan and I are
underage, underexperienced, underdressed, and completely
under the spell of the scene pressing up against us. Ryan looks
a little bit scared, but he’s trying to hide it under an arched
brow and a smokescreen of sarcasm. If someone he doesn’t
like approaches us, he’ll hold my hand to make himself seem
taken, but otherwise it’s hands-off. In the context of our
relationship, this counts as logic: We are just friends except
for the moments when, oops, we’re more than just friends. We
don’t talk about these moments, and I think Ryan believes if
we don’t talk about them, then they haven’t been happening.
That’s what he wants.
I don’t know what I want, so mostly I go along.
53
It was my idea to come here, but I never would have been
able to do it without Ryan at my side. I’ve stuck to the halls of
our high school, living my out-to-everyone life pretty much
the same as before everyone (including me) knew. Only now
it’s the last week of junior year, and it felt like it was time to
go somewhere, to take that forty-five-minute leap into the city.
“Sweet sixteen and never been risked ,” Ryan calls my life –
as if he’s been sneaking out any more than I have. Luckily I
look older than I am – to the point that an opposing coach once
wanted to see my records, to make sure I wasn’t a college-age
ringer. I don’t have a fake ID or anything, but at a place like
Happy Happy, on the first night of Pride, it’s not like they
check. We just had to look like we knew what we were doing,
and that got us in. As long as we don’t get carded at the bar,
we shouldn’t be barred.
I was a little surprised when Ryan said he’d come, because
he insists that his being gay is “nobody’s business.” Where this
leaves me, I’m not exactly sure. There are times I want to
shake him and say, “Dude, I’m the baseball player with the
jock friends and you’re the sensitive poet who edits the lit mag
– shouldn’t I be the one who’s scared?” But then I think I’m
not being nice, or at least not being understanding, since Ryan
has to figure things out for himself. There is no way
whatsoever to figure things out for someone else. Even if he’s
your best friend who you always end up fooling around with.
It’s really dark and there isn’t much room to move. We’re
getting plenty of wolfish looks from other guys. When they’re
54
cute, I think Ryan likes it. But I feel awkward. Meeting
someone new was not the reason I came here, although maybe
it crossed Ryan’s mind when he said yes. There are some guys
at the party who look like what my dad would look like if he
wore lots of leather, and there are others who look like
magazine cutouts, glossy and paper-thin. Or maybe that’s just
me being judgy. I am very new at this, and the pulse of life
around me, the swirl of mixed intentions, is a little
overwhelming. Everyone’s sentences crash together to make
this gigantic noise, and my thoughts overlap so much that all I
can feel is their loudness.
The parties I’ve gone to before have been held in basements
and school gyms. Now it’s like I’ve walked into a wider,
narrower world. Robyn is singing about dancing on her own,
and people are verbing their bodies along to that. These are not
the people I usually hang with. We are not in Brewster’s rec
room, watching a Giants game. This is not a beer crowd.
Everyone here is a cocktail.
We’re not quite at the bar and not quite on the dance floor.
Ryan’s about to say something, but a man with a camera
interrupts by leaning in front of him and asking me who I am.
He can’t be older than thirty, but he has bright silver hair.
“Excuse me?” I shout over the noise.
“Who are you?” he asks again.
“I’m Mark,” I say. “Why?”
“Do you model?”
55
Ryan snickers at this.
“No!” I answer.
“You should!” the guy says.
I’m thinking he can’t be serious, but he takes out his card
and gives it to me. I’ve actually heard his name from real
magazines . . . which is weird. Before I can say anything else,
there’s the pop-burst of a flash. I’m still blinking in the
afterglow when the photographer touches my wrist and tells
me to email him. Then he vanishes back into the crowd.
“What was that?” I ask Ryan.
“Are you talking to me?” he replies. “I’m afraid I’m
currently invisible. Or at least I’m invisible to noted fashion
photographers.”
Ryan is just as cute as I am, but it’s against the rules for me
to tell him that.
I let the card drop to the floor and say, “Whatever.” Ryan
bends down, picks it up, and hands it back.
“Keep it as a souvenir,” he tells me. “I mean, it’s not like
you’re actually going to do anything about it.”
“Who says?”
“Let’s just say history is on my side.”
Not untrue. I am shy. Sometimes painfully shy. And it’s
especially painful when someone reminds me about it.
“Can we look around some more?” I ask. “Maybe dance a
little?”
“You know I don’t dance.”
56
What he means is: He doesn’t dance when other people are
watching. This was his excuse when I wanted to go to our
junior prom together. It would have been a big step for us, and
he looked at me like I’d asked if he wanted to make out in a
shark tank. In front of his parents. Instead of saying we
couldn’t go to the prom because he wanted to keep us a secret,
he wrapped his refusal in a blanket dismissal of dancing. I
knew he wasn’t going to put me through the indignity of
watching him go with someone else – he wasn’t going to try
to live that lie, at least. But he wasn’t going to go with me,
either.
I ended up staying home instead. He came over and I
thought he was going to make it up to me, but instead we
watched There Will Be Blood. Then he went home.
I can understand not wanting to dance in front of everyone
we know. I can see that’s a big deal. But I was hoping it would
be different here. I was hoping that being among all these
happy, happy strangers would pop the cork.
“C’mon,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “It’s pride
week!”
I wanted to come here and have us fit in. But everyone else
seems to know each other or have a group to be with, whether
it’s the power lesbians or the scruffy bears or the wedding
planners or the straight girls who are along for the (p)ride.
Ryan and I only have Ryan and I, and while at first that felt
like enough, now it doesn’t. Not quite.
He makes a general gesture to the people around us.
57
“Really? You’re proud of this?” “It’s
complicated,” I say.
Ryan nods, but his eye has already moved elsewhere. I
follow his gaze to find this very pretty college guy in Clark
Kent glasses and a simple blue t-shirt with a slight rip on the
left shoulder. He’d be the apple of any bookworm’s eye – he’s
much more Ryan’s type than I’ll ever be. He senses Ryan
looking at him . . . then senses me looking at him, and meets
my eye instead of Ryan’s. I quickly look away.
“I saw him first,” Ryan mutters. I think he might be joking,
but something in the pit of my stomach tells me he’s not. Then
he says, “Oh man.” I look back up, and Indie Bookstore Clark
Kent has his arms around a boy who’s wearing a ski hat even
though it’s June. Hat Boy leans in for a kiss and Clark gleefully
obliges. If it were manga, hearts would be rising like balloons
over their heads.
“Happy Happy is depressing depressing me,” Ryan says.
“You promised me fun. Where’s the fun?”
That had been my big argument – It’ll be fun. What I didn’t
add was that I thought the idea of sneaking out of my house,
tiptoeing to the train, and coming into the city where no one
else really knows us would be . . . romantic, I guess. On the
ride in, it was almost like that, like it was an adventure we were
sharing. I pressed my leg against his and he didn’t move away.
We sat there making jokes and imagining the look on my
mother’s face if she checked up on us and found the room
empty. (My mother gets upset when a pillow is out of place on
58
the sofa.) I thought that people looking at us would see a
couple, and I got a misbegotten sense of confirmation from
that.
Now I’m guessing we look like two friends. I probably look
like Ryan’s wingman.
“I want a drink,” he declares.
“You’ll get caught,” I remind him.
“No, I won’t. Have some faith. Some of us aren’t Timid
Timmys.”
I follow him as a he presses into the crowd and makes his
way to the bar. I wonder what would happen if I stopped
walking, if I let the crowd fill up the space between us. Would
he notice? Would he wade back to find me? Or would he keep
going, because forward is his destination and I am not?
I falter for a moment, and in that moment, he reaches for
my hand. As if he senses my doubts. As if he doesn’t need to
turn around to know exactly where I am. As if everything
we’ve been through has at least constructed this connection,
this much of a bridge.
“Stay with me,” he says.
So I do. And when we get to the bar, Charming Ryan
returns. The shadows fall from his mood. When the bartender
comes over, Ryan tosses out his words like he knows they’ll
float into the ears of anyone who hears them. The bartender
smiles; he can’t help but like Ryan. This is the boy I fell for,
about eight years after we first became friends. This is the boy
59
who made me want to be who I am. This is the boy I can
borrow my confidence from.
The bartender comes back with two flutes of champagne,
and I can’t help but laugh at how silly it is. Even though I don’t
drink, Ryan slides one of the glasses over to me.
“Just one sip,” he says. “If you don’t, it won’t be a toast.
It’ll just be a burnt piece of bread.”
I relent and raise my glass. We clink, and then I sip while
he downs. When he’s done, I give him mine to finish off.
“I wish you’d live a little,” he says when the bubbly’s been
popped.
“What does that mean?” I ask, even though we’ve had this
conversation before.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“No, it is. It’s precisely nothing.”
“What’s precisely nothing?”
“The degree to which you put yourself out there.”
I have no idea why this has become the subject.
“What are you talking about? A failure to finish my
champagne makes me – what? A Cowardly Connor?”
“It’s not just that.” He points his empty glass at the crowd.
“This room is full of attractive men. You are a fine specimen
of boyness. But you’re not even looking around. You’re not
trying. That guy gave you a card you’ll never use. Other guys
60
keep looking at you. You could totally work it. But you don’t
want to.”
“What would you have me do?” I spy the signup sheet next
to his elbow. “Join the midnight underwear contest? Dance
around on the bar?”
“Yes! That is exactly what I’d have you do!”
“So I can find a guy to hook up with?”
“Or talk to. Don’t look at me that way – we’re far from the
only teenagers in this place. Mr. Right could be right here,
right now.”
Can’t you see it’s you? the part of me that should know
better wants to ask. But that, too, is against the rules.
“Fine,” I say, and before Ryan can say another word, I am
reaching across the bar for the clipboard. I pull the everpresent
pen from his pocket and write my name down.
Ryan laughs. “No way. There’s no way you’ll follow
through on that.”
“Watch me,” I say -- even though I know he’s right. I’m
fine in the locker room, or with Ryan. But in public? In my
underwear? That would seem about as likely as me going
home with a lesbian.
Still, it’s one thing for me to have it in my head that I’m not
going to do it, and quite another for Ryan to have it in his head.
Because the more he insists I’m going to flake out, the more I
want to prove him wrong. There’s definitely a double standard
61
here – there’s no way he would do it, either. But I’m the one
who’s been dared.
We bicker along these lines for a few more minutes, and
then it’s midnight and the DJ is telling all the underwear
contestants to make their way to the bar. The bartender puts all
the names in an upturned pink wig, then yells my name out
first, followed by nine others. The man next to me immediately
starts to take off his clothes, exposing a steel-armor chest and
graph-paper abs. I think may have seen him swimming in the
Olympics, or maybe it’s his Speedo-shaped underwear that’s
tricking me. The bartender says we’ll be starting in a minute.
“Now or never,” Ryan tells me. From the way he says it, I can
tell his money’s on never.
I kick off my shoes. As Ryan watches, dumbstruck, I pull
off my jeans, then remove my socks, because leaving my socks
on would look silly. I cannot give myself any time to think
about what I’m doing. It feels strange to be standing barefoot
in the middle of a packed club. The floor is sticky. I pull my
shirt over my head.
I am in my underwear. Surrounded by strangers. I thought
I’d be cold, but instead it’s like I’m feeling the heat of the club
more fully. All these bodies clouding the air. And me, right at
the center of it.
I don’t think I’d recognize myself, and that’s okay.
The bartender calls out my name. I hand my shirt to Ryan
and jump onto the bar.
62
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
There are cheers from the crowd, and the DJ throws
Rihanna’s “Umbrella” into the speakers. I have no idea what
I’m supposed to do. I am standing on a bar in my red-andblue
boxer briefs, afraid I’ll knock over people’s drinks.
Obligingly, the patrons pull their glasses down, and before I
know what I’m doing, I’m . . . moving. I’m pretending I’m in
my bedroom, dancing around in my underwear, because that
is certainly something I do often enough. Just not with an
audience. Not with people hooting and whistling. I am
swiveling my hips and I am raising my hand in the air and I
am singing along with the -ella, -ella, -ella. Most of all I am
looking at the expression on Ryan’s face, which is one of pure
astonishment. I have never seen his smile so wide or so bright.
I have never felt him so proud of me. He is whooping at the
top of his lungs. I point at him and match his smile with my
own. I dance with him, even though he’s down there and I’m
up here. I let everybody see how much I love him and he
doesn’t shy away from it, because for a moment, he’s not
thinking about that – he’s only thinking about me.
I take it all in. The world, from this vantage point, is
crazybeautiful. I look around the crowd and see all these
people enjoying themselves – having fun with me or making
fun of me or imagining having fun with me. Pairs of guys and
pairs of women. Young skateboarders and men who look like
bank presidents on their day off. People from all over the Bay
Area patchwork, many of them dancing along, some of them
63
starting to throw money my way. Clark Kent’s in the crowd,
looking me over. When I see him, I swear he winks.
I feel my gaze pulling itself back to Ryan. I feel myself
coming back to him. But along the way, someone else catches
my eye. Before I can return to him – while I’m still up there in
my underwear, thinking he’s the only person in this whole
place who knows who I am, who cares who I am – I see
another face I know. It’s like the song stops for a second, and
I’m thrown. Because, yes, it has to be her. Here, in this gay
bar, watching me dancing near-naked over a carpet of dollar
bills.
Katie Cleary.
The senior I sit next to in Calculus.
64
Chapter Two
“Tell me about her again,” I say.
I change lanes on the top deck of the Bay Bridge so that we
get the best view of the city lights, even though June and Uma
are kissing in the back seat, oblivious to the scenery, and
Lehna is busy scrolling through her phone for the next song
we should listen to.
“I don’t know if there’s anything left to tell,” she laughs.
“It’s okay if I’ve heard it before. Just tell me.”
The first chords of “Divided” by Tegan and Sara start to
play, and for a moment I remember what it felt like for Lehna
and me to stand in the sea of girl-loving girls at their concert
when we were in eighth grade, how I felt something deep in
the core of my heart and my stomach that told me yes.
“She got home on Tuesday,” Lehna says. “And she was
pretty jetlagged but she told me she was used to traveling, not
getting much sleep, keeping weird hours in general. When I
talked to her on the phone she was sewing sequins onto a scarf.
She says she likes to sparkle at Pride.”
“Do you think I look too plain tonight? I am the opposite of
sparkling.”
I began worrying about what to wear several weeks ago, but
that didn’t make me any closer to a solution by the time today
got here. I ended up choosing what I hoped would look a little
bohemian, effortless but still put together. A soft, light
65
chambray button-up tucked into darker jeans. A brown leather
belt with a bronze buckle. High heeled boots. Long,
diamondshaped bronze earrings and bright red lipstick. I put
my hair into a loose side-braid that falls over my shoulder. In
between moments of almost paralyzing self-doubt, I looked in
the mirror and thought, for about half a second, that I looked
like the kind of person I might like to know if I didn’t know
myself already.
“You look great,” June calls from the back seat.
“I would totally fall in love with you,” Uma says.
Lehna says, “Yeah. You look a little bit European, which
Violet will appreciate. And after the performers she’s been
hanging out with, you’ll probably seem refreshingly normal.”
That word—normal—it fills me with panic.
“Make sure to remember to reapply your lipstick. It brings
out the green in your eyes.”
I nod. I will. I turn up the music and try to calm myself
down. Out the window, the lights of the city spread before us,
full of so much promise. All the people in the cars around us
are smiling or nodding their heads to music. We are all on our
way to the same party even if it’s taking place in hundreds of
different bars and living rooms. We are going out to celebrate
ourselves and one another. To fall in love or to remind
ourselves of all the people we’ve loved in the past. For me that
would be a very short list. Which is part of why tonight scares
me so much.
66
Lehna and I have been friends since we were six, so I’ve
known about her cousin Violet for years. The daughter of
Lehna’s photojournalist aunt, Violet has never lived in one
place for more than a year, never attended a traditional school,
and has been traveling across Europe for the past twenty
months, studying with the trapeze artists while her mother
documents circus life. She’s always been a source of
fascination. Even more so when, last year, Violet wrote to
Lehna from Prague and told her she’d fallen in love with a girl.
She described it in a way that no one living a normal life in a
California suburb could explain it. She used words like
passionate and phrases like love affair. The girl was from the
Swiss Alps and her name was Mathilde and it began and ended
over the span of two weeks, from the moment the circus got to
town to the moment it packed up and left.
And then, a couple months later, Violet wrote again to say
that she was going to move back to San Francisco. Her mother
was continuing the circus project, but Violet was turning
eighteen and wanted to make her own life. I want to know how
it feels to stay in one place for a little while, she wrote. So I’m
coming home, even though I don’t even remember what the
seasons feel like there. When Lehna exclaimed late one night
that she should set us up, I pretended that the thought hadn’t
occurred to me, when really it was all I’d been thinking about
for months.
“Remember to call me Kate in front her,” I say.
“Got it. Kate-not-Katie.”
67
“Thanks,” I say, even though I can tell by her smirk and the
tone of her voice that she’s annoyed.
I exit onto Duboce. I’ve driven us to this house a few times.
It’s a classic San Francisco Victorian with small rooms and
high ceilings. Lehna’s friend Shelbie lives there along with a
big chocolate lab and parents who never seem to be home.
Violet knows her, too. Shelbie’s mom and Lehna’s mom and
aunt go way back, I guess. I don’t totally understand the
connection, but I am willing to accept it because it’s taking me
a step closer to finally meeting Violet.
Now that we are actually in the city, my dad’s old Jeep
taking us closer and closer to where we’re going, the streets
full of celebrating people, the night buzzing all around us, I
feel my hands start to shake.
I know that it’s just a first meeting. I know that Violet has
already heard about me and that she wants to meet me, too. I
know that it shouldn’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t work
out between us. But the embarrassing truth is that I have far
too much at stake to be casual about this.
When I’m sitting through history, listening to my teacher
drone on about dates and the names of battles, I think about
Violet. At night, as I do the dinner dishes listening to love
songs through oversized headphones, I think about Violet. I
think about her when I wake up in the morning and when I’m
mixing oil paints and when I’m getting books out of my locker.
And when I begin to worry that I chose the wrong college, or
that my future roommate will hate me, or that I’m going to
68
grow up and forget about the things I once loved—cobalt blue,
this certain hill behind my high school, searching for old slides
at flea markets, the song “Divided”—I think about Violet.
She’s swinging from a trapeze, mending colorful costumes,
driving in a caravan across Europe while cracking jokes with
fire breathers and tightrope walkers—then coming home to
San Francisco and falling in love with me.
“There’s something I should mention,” Lehna says as we
make our way down Guerrero Street. “I may have told her you
had a solo show coming up at a gallery in the city.”
“What?”
“We were talking about how good of a painter you are, and
then I just got carried away for a second.”
“But I don’t even know any galleries in the city,” I say.
“We’ll look up a couple places when we get to Shelbie’s
house, okay? Once Violet gets to know you she won’t care
about it anymore. For now it makes you seem sophisticated
and accomplished. Here, park in the driveway. Shelbie said it
was fine.”
I pull into the narrow space and park at an incline that seems
perilous.
“Lovebirds!” Lehna calls into the back seat. “It’s time to
get out of the car!”
I hear Uma murmur something and June giggle, and then I
guess some weird time lapse thing happens because the three
of them are outside of the car and I am still here, clutching the
steering wheel.
69
Lehna knocks on the window.
“Come on, Kate.”
I follow them inside to where Shelbie and her cool
citydwelling friends sprawl across the sofas and rugs, laughing
and drinking and looking fabulous. All these boys and girls,
gay and straight and everything in between—they look at us
and wave and say hello and I would like to stop and get to
know some of them but Lehna heads to the study where the
computer screensaver glows shifting family snapshots and
says, “We have to look something up real quick. We’ll be right
back.”
And then, even though I am right behind her, she says,
“Let’s go, Kate.”
I’m about to ask why it’s so annoying to her; it’s my name,
after all. And it’s not like I’ve decided that I want to be called
something totally random. It’s just another form of Katherine,
one I think might suit me better. But I don’t even need to ask
her because I already know the answer. When you’re friends
with someone for such a long time, it’s easy to feel like she
belongs to you, like the version of the person you became
friends with is the only real version. If she hated peas when
she was a kid then she will always hate peas, and if she starts
to eat them and declares them delicious, really she is deluding
herself, masking her hatred of them, trying to pretend that
she’s someone she’s not.
But the thing is, I never chose to be called Katie. As far as
I know, that’s what my parents called me the moment I popped
70
out and I never even thought of the other possibilities until
recently, when I started to feel like something was a little bit
off every time someone said my name. And as I stand here in
this dim room while Lehna looks up the names and
descriptions of San Francisco art galleries I can’t help thinking
about how that applies to a lot of my friends, too. I didn’t
choose to be friends with Lehna, not really. I kind of just fell
into it the way you fall into things when you’re in a kid in a
new school and the first person who pays attention to you feels
like such a gift, such an overwhelming relief. You are not
alone. You have a friend. And it’s only later—maybe even
years later—that you stop and wonder, Why this person? Why
her?
Lehna rattles off the names of galleries but I can see from
the images on the screen that my paintings wouldn’t belong in
any of them.
“This is such a bad idea,” I say. “If she brings it up I’ll just
tell her that you misunderstood me or something. I’ll tell her
that I want to have a show one day.”
“It isn’t enough,” Lehna says. She turns in her swivel chair
and looks at me. “You want this, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “I want this.”
And I can see how much Lehna wants it to work out
between Violet and me, too. There must be some compromise
we can reach, some in between. I lean over the computer and
type, hair salon art gallery san francisco.
71
“Let’s start out a little more realistically, okay?”
I find a trendy salon in Hayes Valley that features a new
artist’s work every month.
“Your stuff is way better than that,” Lehna says, even though
the work that they are featuring this month is actually really
nice. Delicate line drawings with splashes of color. Mostly
portraits, some botanicals. She clicks through some other
links until she finds a list of San Francisco’s best new
galleries.
“Look through this,” she says. “Choose one.”
“Fine,” I say, even though I know it’s a terrible idea.
Because what Lehna is telling me is that I’m not enough for
Violet yet. I need to be better, and I know that I can be, even
if I have to fake it for a little while. “But I don’t have a show
lined up yet,” I tell her. “It’s still preliminary.”
“Let’s just say they went crazy when they saw your
portfolio. It’s just a matter of time.” She reaches into her
pocket for her phone and when she looks back up at me she’s
smiling.
“Violet’s on her way,” she says. “Maybe you could, like,
reapply?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I stand up and I find myself suddenly hot and dizzy, saying,
“I think my lipstick’s in the car,” even though it’s not.
We head out of the study and into the crowd that has already
multiplied in the few minutes we spent back there. None of the
faces are ones that I recognize, and they are now too absorbed
72
in one another to acknowledge us. Lehna at least looks like she
belongs with her nose ring and her hair in its ponytail to show
off the patch on one side that she keeps buzzed short. June and
Uma are nowhere to be found. They’ve probably snuck off to
a bedroom.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Lehna and she nods and walks
into the kitchen.
I step around the kids on the rugs and out the door, past my
car and up to the corner, telling myself that I’ll just walk
around the block. I need a few minutes by myself because I
suddenly feel stupid and small and like there’s no way I could
be worthy of this girl I’m about to meet.
But I reach the end of the block and I keep walking, up
through Dolores Park, into the throngs of celebrating people.
They’re a happy riptide and I’m letting myself get carried out,
deeper and deeper into the sea of them, further from the
moment I’ve been awaiting for so long.
Out here feels worlds away from Shelbie’s living room. A
bunch of teenagers sitting around looking cool is nothing like
the thrumming crowd on the street. Here everything is electric
and happy. Even the toughest looking women, leaning against
storefronts with expressions of practiced unapproachability,
soften when I smile at them. Even the vainest, most
alooflooking boys seem sweet. And most of the people out
here don’t even have a barrier to break.
73
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking and I don’t want
to take my phone out to check. I should turn back but I’m not
ready to leave all of this yet. Just thinking of Violet makes my
hands tremble, and I’m standing next to the open door of a club
that’s beckoning me inside with the techno-remix of an old
jazz song. I reapply my lipstick in the darkened window— for
myself, not for Lehna—and then I step inside. It’s so dark it
takes a minute for my eyes to adjust but soon I spot the bar.
I’ll just try to get a drink, give myself some time to calm down.
Then I’ll walk back to the house, ignore Lehna’s disapproval,
and meet Violet.
The boy serving drinks is paper doll perfect, and the crowd
of men waiting to order from him seems to be in direct
proportion to his attractiveness. But at the other end of the bar
a cute girl with short hair and tattoos all over her muscular
arms seems to be coming back from a break, so I make my
way over to her and flash her a smile. She locks eyes with me
and nods a nod that means she’ll take my order.
I lean over the bar toward her until our faces are close. She
tips her head to the side so that she’ll hear my voice over the
music.
“Tanqueray and tonic.”
Lehna learned this from her older sister and taught me how
to say it with confidence. It’s the only drink I know how to
order.
The bartender turns away from me and grabs the green
bottle and a glass.
74
I wish I had Violet’s number because I would text her and
say, I got a little sidetracked and ended up in a bar. Meet me
here? I would say, I’ve been really looking forward to meeting
you.
I avoid looking at my lit-up phone as I dig in my purse for
my wallet. The bartender plunks my drink in front of me on a
bright pink napkin, and I hand her ten dollars in exchange.
Then I make my way to a tall table with a single bar stool. It’s
been pushed against a wall and left unoccupied because
everyone here is either standing or dancing, pushing their way
into the center of the party. I take my first sip as the paperdoll
bartender makes an announcement and cheering follows. It’s
for some kind of contest; I can’t hear what kind, but soon
“Umbrella” is playing and almost-naked men are climbing on
top of the bar. Some of them look super confident, some of
them look self-conscious, but they are all having fun and their
happiness fills me up. I watch them strutting around and then
I watch the crowd watching them, and I notice that most of the
guys are focused on one particular dancer. I follow their gaze
to a boy who is way too young to be in here but who also seems
totally at home.
All he’s wearing are those tight boxer things I’ve seen in
Calvin Klein ads, red and blue, and with his close-cropped
blond hair and general wholesomeness he could be the gay
poster boy for America. Unlike one of the older guys who is
practically humping the bar, he doesn’t even seem like he’s
trying to be sexy. He’s just doing his thing, singing along. I
75
sing along with him. He points into the crowd and I see a darkhaired boy whoop back at him. And it’s crazy, but I know that
boy. He’s a junior, his name is Ryan. He used one of my
landscapes for the cover of the literary journal last semester. I
couldn’t tell if he was gay or just the sensitive, artistic type,
but I guess this answers my question.
And now I’m starting to think that the dancing boy looks
somewhat familiar, like I’ve seen him in a commercial or
something, like he’s played in the background while I’ve been
thinking of other things. But no. I know him from real life, I
guess, because he’s caught sight of me now and his whole
demeanor changes.
He freezes. And Oh my God it’s Mark Rissi. We’ve never
even talked, but we sit next to each other in Calc. Now the
song is over and the crowd is going crazy. Mark jumps down
from the bar and Ryan is trying to high-five him but Mark is
still looking at me, taking his clothes from Ryan and muttering
something.
When he reaches my table, he’s still fumbling with his belt
buckle.
He stops in front of me and says, “Oh my God.”
All of that confidence and happiness is gone, and I want it
back for him. That rush. I want it back for all of us. I feel like
we share something, in what we’re missing right now.
“Hey, Mark,” I say. “It is Mark, right?”
He nods but all he says, again, is “Oh my God.”
76
“I have something serious to ask you.” My heart is
pounding because I’m not the kind of person who just opens
up to anyone. I tend to be more of a listener, not a sharer of
problems, but tonight is not a typical night. Violet is less than
a mile away from us, the bass is pounding, the disco ball
casting diamonds of light through the darkness, and it turns out
that the shy jock from Calc is in reality a heartthrob jail-bait of
a boy who dances practically naked in gay bars.
“Please—” Mark starts.
But I am not a ruiner of squeaky-clean reputations. I’m
ready to move on to bigger things with him. So I cut him off
and say, “I thought it was an excellent performance. By the
time you leave I’m sure that every available guy in here will
have given you his number.” Ryan appears next to us.
“It’s my fault,” he says. “I kind of coerced him into doing
it.”
“God, you two,” I say. “Lighten up! I won’t tell anyone.
But, Mark, just listen, okay? Because I’m about to ask you
something and, like I said, it’s a serious question.”
Mark’s panic fades into relief. He sighs and runs his hand
over his face. When he looks at me again, he is ready to listen.
“Do you want to be friends with me?” I ask him.
He cocks his head.
“Come again?”
“I know that makes me sound like I’m in preschool or
something. It’s not even the main question, but I feel like we
77
should establish a friendship before I ask you what I really
want to ask you. I’ve spent the whole day, the whole school
year, really, realizing that I might not actually like my friends
all that much. Which is why I’m at a bar by myself on a night
when everyone else is with other people. I wasn’t supposed to
be here, but here I am, and then here you are, and it’s like a
flashing arrow is pointing at you, telling me that you are
someone I should know.” “Uhm,” Mark says.
Ryan mutters something about invisibility but I don’t ask
him what he means because I’m too focused on Mark’s face.
“I guess?” he says. “I mean, if you want to?”
“Okay, good. So now for the real question: Have you ever
wanted something so badly that it sort of takes over your life?
Like, you still do all the things you’re supposed to do, but
you’re just going through the motions because you are entirely
consumed by this one thing?”
The blush that was beginning to fade comes rushing back
to his face, even deeper than before, and his eyes dart towards
Ryan and then away quickly. Interesting.
He nods, and he really looks into my face as he does it, and
I look hard back at him and it is clear: we understand each
other.
“I just ran away from a girl I don’t know yet,” I tell him.
He smiles. “She sounds that bad?”
“No,” I say. “She sounds amazing. She’s supposed to
change my life.”
78
“So what happened?”
“She’s all I can think about all the time,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. He understands.
“Have you ever wanted something so badly that when it’s
about to happen, you feel this need to sabotage yourself?”
His eyes stay fixed on mine and I can tell that he’s trying to
follow me to this place, but he ends up shaking his head. “No,”
he says. “I don’t think I work that way.”
“I didn’t think I did either. I’ve been waiting for this night
for months. And then, I just . . .” I shrug. I feel my eyes well
up.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says. “Don’t give up. It’s still tonight.
Where were you supposed to meet her?”
“At this party. Lehna’s friend’s house.”
“Okay, and is it close?”
“Yeah, just through the park and over a few blocks.”
“Has anyone tried to get in touch with you?”
I groan. “I’m afraid to look.”
“Then hand it over.” He waits. I dig my phone out of my
bag and place it, screen down, into the broad palm of his hand.
“Whoa,” he says, the light of the screen illuminating his
face. “Twenty-three texts from Lehna Morgan.”
“Go ahead.”
“Want me to read them all or just the highlights?”
“Just the highlights.”
He scrolls down the list.
79
“They’re mostly variations on ‘Where the fuck are you?’ A
few ‘Are you okay?’s”
“Keep going.”
“One says, ‘Violet just got here.’ Is that the girl?”
I nod.
“Okay, hold on. . . . Oh.”
“What?”
“She left. About five minutes ago.”
“Is she coming back?”
“Lehna doesn’t say.”
I look down into my drink. Mostly empty. Just some
remnants of ice cubes.
“Maybe I should order another one.”
“Or, we could try to find her.”
Mark’s face is open, earnest, hopeful -- a perfect antidote
to the despair slowly settling in me. I’m about to ask him how
we’d go about finding her, but the music gets softer and a
man’s voice booms out that the winner of the midnight
underwear dance contest has been determined.
People cheer and I cheer with them, rooting for my new
friend Mark, who is not looking toward the bartender but
instead scanning the room, the hope on his face now mingling
with concern as the bartender says, “Defeating our reigning
champ Patrick, Mark takes the crown tonight. Mark, are you
still out there? Get your all-American sexy butt up here to
collect your prize.”
80
And then the music is loud again and everyone is dancing.
“Aren’t you gonna go up there?” I ask him. “The prize
could be something good. You know, penis-shaped lollipops,
rainbow-patterned condoms . . .”
But Mark doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t move. So I turn toward
where he’s looking and I finally spot Ryan, who is now across
the room from us. He’s with a few cute college boys, one with
thick black glasses, another in a ski cap, and another who I can
only see from the back, tattoos peeking out of his shirt sleeves,
one hand holding a glass of beer, the other hand settled in the
center of Ryan’s back. One song fades into the next and tattoo
boy and his friends are feeling it. He turns, takes a few gulps
of beer, sets the glass on a nearby table, and starts moving with
the rhythm.
I’ve probably kept Mark to myself for too long. Here he is,
out in the city on the kickoff of the year’s gayest week,
winning underwear contests, the object of quite a few lustful
gazes, and I’ve trapped him in a corner with my crisis.
“You should go over there,” I say, but Mark doesn’t even
seem to hear me. That despair I mentioned I was feeling? It’s
like it has suddenly become contagious, taken over Mark’s
entire body. His shoulders are slumped, his breathing seems
labored.
“What is it?” I ask him. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ryan,” he says, so quietly I can barely hear him. “He’s
dancing.”
81
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nina LaCour is the author of the award-winning Hold Still
and the widely acclaimed The Disenchantments. Formerly a
bookseller and high-school English teacher, she now writes
and parents full-time. A California native, Nina lives with
her family in the San Francisco Bay area.
Twitter: @Nina_LaCour
Website: ninalacour.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Levithan won the Lambda Literary Award for his
debut novel Boy Meets Boy, but is probably best known for
his collaborations with John Green (Will Grayson, Will
Grayson) and Rachel Cohn (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,
which was also made into a movie).
As well as being a New York Times bestselling author,
David is also a highly respected children’s book editor,
whose list includes many luminaries of children’s
literature, including Garth Nix, Libba Bray and Suzanne
Collins. He lives and works in New York.
Twitter: @LoversDiction
Website: davidlevithan.com
ACCIDENTAL SUPERSTAR
BY MARIANNE LEVY
If I’d known that two million people were going to be watching,
I’d probably have done a bit of tidying up.
Katie Cox is used to going unnoticed, by her mum, her
dad, even her best friend. But when a video of her singing
in her bedroom goes viral, she becomes a superstar
overnight. As the views skyrocket and a recording contract
beckons, the real world starts to feel very far away.
And now Katie’s riding high on her newfound fame. But
the higher she goes, the further there is to fall . . .
Accidental Superstar by Marianne Levy is the first in a
hilarious new series about a girl who accidentally finds
fame singing online.
The picture quality’s not the best. But even so, it’s clear I’m
having a good time. I’m smiling so much you can see all my
teeth and I’m shutting my eyes on the high notes and
everything. And my voice sounds all right, I think. Not
perfect, but not terrible, either.
It’s a shame you can also see a pack of extra-strong
blackhead-removal cream on my desk. And heaps of
clothes on my bedroom floor. And something round and
fluffy sticking out from under the bed that I think was once
a pepperoni pizza.
If I’d known that two million people were going to be
watching, I’d probably have done a bit of tidying up.
86
‘Amanda, will you please turn it down? Some of us are trying to work.’
Basically, my sister had got her first pay cheque and bought a new
stereo which she had on pretty much 24/7. Even at night. Especially at
night.
Meanwhile Lacey had cut her own fringe and because it didn’t look
completely terrible was putting serious pressure on me to join her.
Honestly. You get whole entire lessons on how to deal with people
offering you cigarettes and drugs but no one prepares you for your best
friend clicking a pair of scissors in your face and saying, ‘It’ll really show
off your eyes.’
Oh, and Mum and Dad’s divorce had come through. So there was
that.
Otherwise it was a normal sort of a Saturday morning and I was lying
on my bed supposedly doing my English but in fact doodling lyrics,
because that’s how I like to warm up for homework. Of course,
sometimes I spend so long on the warmup I run out of time before I
reach the main event.
The problem is that writing songs is just so much more interesting
than homework. Writing songs is more interesting than anything.
Except listening to songs that other people have written, which is the
other way I warm up for homework.
It is possible that I don’t spend as much time on my homework
87
as I should.
But this song wouldn’t leave me alone. The hook had been
following me around all morning, something about ‘break-up, makeup’, with a little pause, then a defiant flick-flick, like the notes were
turning around and walking away.
For a second, I had it, there, whole in my head.
Gonna break out my make-up
For this stupid break-up
And then the pause, and then . . .
Thump thump, thump-thump thump.
‘Amanda, will you turn it down, just for a second? I am in the middle
of academic study.’
For just a second, the bass boom did stop. Then it started again.
I was beginning to realize that I’d been wasting my life. All those
years of Amanda not having a new stereo. Glorious, peaceful years,
when I could doze off on my bed or have a conversation with Lacey or
think of a tune . . .
The noise intensified.
‘MANDA! My walls are VIBRATING.’
‘You said just for a second!’
I grabbed my lyric book and wrote everything down before it got
away from me again, then pulled my guitar across the bed to get the
tune into my fingers.
At which point the door opened.
‘Katie, I thought you were doing homework?’
My big sister stood in the doorway and gave me one of her looks.
88
Amanda is tall, with a long face and a long nose and long fingers.
But even though all the sticky-outy bits of her are thin, the middle bits
are pretty solid. By which I mean, she’s got broad shoulders and biggish
boobs, and they make her look fatter than she is. I’m allowed to say
that because I have them too. (Thanks, Mum.) Then there’s the Cox
hair, which is mad, half curly, half straight, and the Cox skin, which is
pale with an oily T-zone.
‘I am about to start a very important essay on Julius Caesar,
actually.’
Up went her eyebrows. ‘And you’re writing it on the guitar?’
‘If only.’
Which Mands took as a signal to sit down on my bed, giving
Shakespeare a close-up view of her bum. Which seemed as good a
moment as any to call it a day.
It’s like I always say with homework: you can push it too far.
It’s really important to know when to stop.
‘I liked what you were playing just now,’ said Amanda.
I played it again.
‘Does it have words?’
I had a go at singing it. Only, it didn’t come out fun and defiant like
I’d intended it to. It just came out a bit sad.
‘Do you think,’ said Amanda, ‘that maybe you’ve written enough
songs about the divorce?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s over and we’re OK. So stop dwelling.’
For the record, there hadn’t been that many. Which I told her.
‘Four-Fingered Twix wasn’t about the divorce! And Home
Sweet Home wasn’t either. Well, maybe a tiny bit.’
89
‘Goodbye bedroom,’ sang Amanda, ‘Goodbye past. Homes like
ours aren’t made to last. I’d say that was about the divorce. Wouldn’t
you?’
She had a point. But saying goodbye to the literal home of my entire
childhood, how could I not write about it? All the good memories, like
the guinea-pig babies and Easter egg hunting and next-door’s cat
falling in the paddling pool, were in that house, and when Dad left we
had to sell it. He used his half of the proceeds to rent a place in
California where you can sometimes see dolphins from the kitchen
window. We used our half to rent a flat in Harltree, a nowheresville
just outside London, where what you can see from the kitchen window
are foxes going through the bins.
In the end, divorce affects everything. Even the wildlife.
‘You’re bringing us down,’ said my sister.
‘Oh, blame it all on me. The big bad apple on the family tree.’
She laughed. ‘You should put that in a song. Anyway, things change,
people move on.’
‘Dad certainly seems to have.’
‘THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.’
‘I’m supposed to be miserable! I’m a teenager. That’s just me!’
‘Doesn’t sound like the Katie I know,’ said Amanda, which was
kind of her, given that it did sound like the Katie I knew, for the
last few months, at least.
‘You know what? You’re right,’ I said. ‘From now on I will be
upbeat.’ I waved at the window, and any potential bin foxes, and
plucked out a bit of a tune.
‘So much better,’ said Amanda. ‘And anyway, it’s not all doom and
gloom. Mum’s got a boyfriend.’
My fingers froze. ‘What? No she hasn’t.’
90
‘She has.’
‘Amanda, Mum isn’t seeing anyone. She knows it’s way too soon
for that. I’ve told her.’
‘Which is why she hasn’t told you.’
‘And she told you?’
Mands looked away. ‘Not specifically. But there are signs.’
The thing about Amanda is that she’s read too many fairy stories
about happy ever after and handsome princes and things. What she
doesn’t realize is that we had the perfect family. We were the perfect
family. And then we weren’t. And we never would be ever again.
No biggie.
‘What signs?’ I said.
‘OK . . .’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘She’s been singing in
the shower.’
‘Practising for karaoke.’
‘She bought a new jacket.’
‘It’s been cold!’
‘She’s got –’ Amanda paused for effect – ‘the glow.’
‘She went on a sunbed!’
‘And why do you think that is?’ said Amanda.
‘I told you,’ I said. ‘It’s been really cold. Can you please get your
behind off my books?’
‘OK, but listen –’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You listen. Mum was really messed up by all the Dad
stuff. It took her ages to get even slightly sorted and she’s only just got
herself into anything like an OK place. I hardly think she’d go and mess
that up with someone new right now.’
Amanda stood up. ‘Not with you telling her she can’t – Urgh!
What’s that?’
91
I had a look. ‘Pizza.’
‘Katie, we had pizza three nights ago. You are revolting.’ ‘Then
you are free to amuse yourself elsewhere.’ So she got up, and
left.
After that I did try to do my homework. I tried to write a new song too,
because that tune I’d come up with was properly catchy. I played it
over and over and over again, only, instead of lyrics, all I could think
about was Mum.
It was slightly disturbing to hear that I’d been holding her back,
because all I care about is her happiness. And mine, I suppose, but
mine is kind of dependent on hers, so it’s all the same, really.
Which is why I resolved to talk to her about it at the earliest
opportunity.
That wouldn’t be for ages, though, as Mum was taking loads of
extra shifts at the hospital. Still, if I had to wait a day or two, or even a
fortnight, for the chance to have what would probably be quite an
awkward conversation, then that was just how it would have to be.
Shame.
Which is when I heard her key in the door.
‘Katie? Are you home? I feel like I haven’t talked to you properly in
ages!’
Sometimes I think that maybe the universe is using me to have a
bit of a laugh.
‘I’m in my room,’ I said.
‘Coming!’
There was no way she was glowing, although it was true that Mum
did look a bit happier than she had been. Probably just the effect of
92
her new jacket. And the haircut. And, was that an actual manicure . . .
?
‘So,’ I said. ‘How’re things? It’s all been quite tough lately, hasn’t
it?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Mum.
‘What with the move,’ I said. ‘And this place being so cramped.’
‘It’s growing on me,’ said Mum.
‘Like fungus,’ I said.
I suppose I should describe our flat, but there’s not much point. It
had somebody else’s curtains on the windows and someone else’s
hairy old carpet on the floor. So it wasn’t really ours at all.
Mum was still going. ‘I know things have been . . . well. But I feel
like we’re really turning a corner.’
‘“We” as in . . .’
‘Me, you, Amanda. Us.’
Which made me feel a little better. ‘Maybe.’
‘Definitely,’ said Mum. ‘It’s like there’s been a dark cloud over us,
but you know what, summer’s on its way, we’re settled here now . . .
we’ve made it, Katie.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I said.
‘I really do think we’re going to be all right,’ said
Mum. ‘So cheer up. Promise?’
I wasn’t going to promise, but I did say, ‘I’ll try,’ which was pretty
much the same thing. Because maybe we would be all right, now.
Mands was pretty annoying and I wasn’t at all sure about Mum’s taste
in jackets but, all things considered – and there were a lot of things to
consider – we’d made it through quite well.
‘Are you all right to do dinner without me tonight?’
93
‘Of course,’ I said, doing a little dance inside. The things Mum does
to food would be considered torture if it wasn’t already dead. ‘What’s
the occasion?’
‘It’s karaoke at the Dog and Duck, and for once I’m not at work.’
Mum is a complete karaoke fiend. I think her version of My Way is
better than the original. And the Elvis version. It’s maybe up there with
Nina Simone’s.
‘Is that why you’re in such a good mood?’ I said.
She flushed. ‘They’re a nice bunch in there. They don’t ask about
your father. And they like my singing.’
Of course they liked Mum’s singing. How could they not?
‘So that’s why you’re so happy,’ I said. ‘It’s funny, because
Amanda thought you had a new boyfriend!’
There was this pause.
And then Mum said, ‘Clever Amanda.’
‘What? Why? Amanda isn’t clever. Amanda doesn’t know anything.
You don’t have a boyfriend.’
‘He’s called Adrian,’ said Mum. ‘I’m sure you’ll like him a lot.’
I wanted to say: Adrian? How long has this been going on for? And
did you not think to maybe ask me first?
‘Adrian?’ I said. ‘How long has this been going on for? And, excuse
me, but did you not think to maybe ask me first?’
‘Only a couple of months,’ said Mum. ‘And I don’t need your
permission, Katie.’
‘But I thought . . .’ and then I ran out of words and just stared at
her.
‘He saw me singing a few times and said I had a nice voice, and then
one thing led to another and . . .’ I had to tune out for a bit. I came back
94
in on, ‘I’d never have started seeing him if I hadn’t thought you could
deal with it. He’s lovely, Katie. I promise.’
‘If he ever hurts you, I’ll kill him with my bare hands. And my
straighteners, which are pretty lethal when they’re heated up.’ She
laughed, which was annoying, because I meant it.
‘I’ll have him over for lunch on Sunday. I’m sure you’ll get on like a
house on fire.’
At which point she went back downstairs. And I did feel like a house
on fire.
Which I don’t think was what Mum meant at all.
95
‘I’m a bad person,’ I said.
Lacey and I were walking along the canal to school. Which sounds
all pretty and lovely and like it’s full of boats and ducklings, but in fact
is quite a risky way of getting somewhere, what with all the year eight
boys and the incredibly dirty water.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t nice bits. There’s a properly
friendly cat that likes to hang out on top of the barges and once a year
the geese have chicks, or geeselings, or whatever baby geese are
called.
Mostly, though, it’s graffiti and seagulls picking things out of the
bins. And people sitting on benches chatting, which seems fine until
you notice that
a)
they are all drinking Special Brew and
b) it is eight thirty in the morning.
‘How do you mean, you’re a bad person?’ said Lacey.
‘You’re supposed to say, “No you’re not”,’ I told her.
‘OK, no you’re not. Why?’
‘Because Mum’s found a new boyfriend and she’s really happy and
I know I should be happy too, but I’m not.’ ‘That’s not so bad,’ said
Lacey.
96
‘But you think it’s a bit bad?’
‘A bit,’ said Lacey, and I decided I wouldn’t be asking her for any
more advice for the time being.
We stopped for a second to watch one of the boys trying to climb
into a wheelie-bin.
‘Did you know that Savannah’s having a party?’ said Lacey.
‘Nope,’ I said, still watching the boys in the bin.
‘It’s not for ages and ages but she’s already got this exclusive guest
list,’ Lacey went on.
‘You’re making Savannah sound like some Hollywood
A-lister,’ I said.
‘She probably is a Harltree A-lister,’ said Lacey. ‘Which makes us
Harltree D-listers, I suppose.’
‘Stop it, Lacey, you’re overwhelming me with joy.’
‘Maybe we’re C-listers?’ said Lacey. ‘Nah, we’re
definitely D-list. If that.’
‘Well, she can’t just have the A-list at the party or there’ll only be
three of them there.’
That sounded like my last party. Me, Lacey and Mands, dancing to
my collection of vintage NOW albums. ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘As long as it’s
the right three people.’
‘Yes, but her dad’s spending loads of money on it. There’s going to
be a tent in her garden. A really enormous one, with caterers and a
light-up dance floor and everything.’ ‘Just how big is this tent?’ I asked.
‘It’s so big,’ said Lacey, ‘that it even has its own toilets. That’s what
Paige told me.’
‘Savannah won’t allow her guests to put their bums on her proper
loo?’
97
‘No,’ said Lacey, sniggering. ‘Only Savannah’s beautiful behind gets
to sit on that.’
This was particularly funny because last week a picture had gone
around of Savannah’s bare bum. At least, it was supposed to be
Savannah’s. Savannah herself denied all knowledge, and it was a
suspiciously perfect bum, even for perfect Savannah.
Still, we all shared it, because, you know. Bums.
‘Do you really reckon she’ll invite the likes of us?’ I said, thinking
that maybe, if she did, I might get a shot at standing somewhere in the
vicinity of Dominic Preston, who is gorgeous.
Lacey looked a bit offended. ‘She’s invited me. Maybe it’s my
fringe. I think my hair is B-list, even if I’m not. You really need to
consider cutting one in, Katie, it would completely open out your face.’
‘I am considering it,’ I said.
‘I could do it tonight,’ said Lacey hopefully. ‘If you’ve got some
sharp scissors.’
I made a mental note to text Mands and get her to hide the scissors.
‘I think Adrian’s going to be there tonight,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could
go to yours.’
‘Is he that bad?’
‘I did try to like him,’ I said, sadly. ‘For Mum’s sake. I did try.’
I’d opened the door to him the day before.
‘All right? I’m Ade.’
He was wearing a tight black T-shirt, which was not even slightly
appropriate for a man of forty or fifty or whatever he was, and
jeans and a huge cracked leather jacket.
‘Hello, Ade . . . rian.’
‘You Amanda or Katie?’
98
‘Katie.’
‘Mind if I come on through, Katie? I’m gagging for a slash.’
He came on through, his jacket making a creaky noise, and an
invisible battle started up between the lunch smell of roast chicken and
his very strong aftershave. The chicken was just marching a retreat
back to the oven as Adrian emerged from the loo.
‘Is that him?’ Amanda was at my elbow.
‘Shh,’ I said. ‘Just watch for a second.’
We stood in the doorway as he went through to the kitchen, kissed
Mum, then poured himself a glass of water. He headed straight to the
right cupboard and even knew to do the funny twist thing to make the
water come out of our dodgy tap.
‘What?’ hissed Amanda. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s been here before.’
‘So?’
Was it while I’d been at school? I reran two months’ worth of
breakfasts, me yabbering away over the Nutella, thinking I had Mum’s
full attention, while all the time she must have been counting the
minutes until she could get rid of me and see Loverboy.
Or had he come round at night? Did Mum wait until Mands and me
were in bed and then sneak out to let him in?
All those times she’d given me McDonald’s money to go and meet
Lacey in town, had she really been trying to get rid of me?
Judging by the evidence – whose hand was now cupping one of my
mother’s buttocks – the answer was yes.
Now, there are lots of ways you can spoil a Sunday lunch. You can
burn the chicken. You can drop your headphones in the gravy. Or you
can sit down across the table from a man with two hairs sprouting out
99
of his nose. By which I mean, the skin on top of his nose. Not his
nostrils, which would have been disgusting but at least normal.
‘Good chicken, Mum,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Amanda.
‘It’s not too burnt, is it?’ said Mum.
‘Not at all.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘Your best ever.’
‘It really tastes . . . of . . . chicken.’
There was a pause, which might have lasted a moment or maybe a
hundred years.
‘It’s delicious,’ said Adrian, and then he leaned over and kissed
Mum on the mouth. While she was still chewing. With tongues.
After five of the most awkward seconds of my life he finished eating
my mother and went back to his plate. ‘So, Amanda, Zoe tells me you
play bass?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said, looking at her lap. ‘Sometimes.’ ‘I used to
be in a band once. Back in the day. Split up.
Creative differences. You know.’ ‘Oh,
right,’ said Amanda.
‘Still got a lot of industry connections. You should meet my mate
Tony, Tony Topper? The stories he could tell . . .’
‘I bet.’
‘So, are you any good?’
‘I’m . . . OK.’
‘Just OK?’ Adrian leaned forward and I noticed he had a bit of
squashed carrot stuck to his elbow. ‘Who are your influences?’
And that was it. For the next ten minutes Amanda was off in
Amanda Land, talking about the music she loves and the bands she’s
100
going to see and the bands she’d like to see but can’t because they’re
not touring at the moment or they’ve split up or they’re dead and blah
blah infinite blah.
And Adrian was doing it too! For every band she wanted to talk
about he had an actual opinion, which is not what you do when
Amanda kicks off on one of her music rants: you keep quiet until it
passes. Nose Hairs, on the other hand, was encouraging her. And all
the while, Mum was nodding and smiling and stuffing her face with
chicken.
‘You know,’ said Adrian, ‘I could do with someone like you in the
shop. Vox Vinyl, you know it?’
Amanda nodded like it was Christmas and her birthday and she’d
won the lottery. Twice.
‘We’re a bit short-staffed at the moment, and it’s so hard to find
someone who knows their stuff. You free to do a few hours next
week?’
‘I can be,’ said Amanda. Honestly, I thought she might faint. I mean,
I know she’d always said she fancied working in a record shop, but I
hadn’t realized it was her Life’s Great Ambition. Until now.
‘Good stuff,’ said Adrian.
‘I just have to tell the café I’m leaving, but that’s fine, I’m a rubbish
waitress anyway.’
‘I don’t know that we’re busy enough to justify you coming over
full-time . . .’
‘That’s all right,’ said Amanda. ‘I’ll just . . . I’ll be really useful
. . . it’s fine.’ ‘Is
it?’ I said.
At which point, he turned his attention to me. ‘I’ve heard you and
your sister like jamming together?’ Then he did a little burp.
101
‘’Scuse me.’ Mum
giggled.
‘I’ve
got
some
instruments
kicking
around
that
I’ve been meaning to sell. Some Gibsons, a couple of Fenders – you’d
be welcome to come and mess about with them.’
‘That would be amazing!’ said Amanda.
I said something that can only be written as ‘Mblm’.
‘Katie writes songs,’ said Amanda. ‘About her life and stuff. She’s
like Lily Allen used to be, sort of. Kooky.’
I’d planned on staying silent but this was too much. ‘Don’t call me
kooky! Kooky is for girls who wear plastic flowers in their hair and have
names for their toes.’
‘Feisty?’
‘No. Feisty says “She’s so out there, which is really surprising
because she is a girl”.’
‘Quirky?’
I mimed being sick.
‘All right then,’ said Amanda. ‘How about “different”?’ I thought
for a second. ‘I will accept different. Thank you.’ There was a
very long silence.
‘So, Katie, how’s school?’ said Mum.
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Tell Adrian what you’re studying at the moment.’
‘Nothing much.’
‘It’s OK, Zo. When I was her age, school was the last thing I wanted
to think about. Especially not on the weekend. Bet you’re too busy
chasing the boys, yeah, Katie?’ Then he winked.
‘We’re doing a play called Julius Caesar,’ I said, ‘which is where this
annoying bloke who thinks he’s all that ends up getting stabbed.’
102
And then I did my most evil stare. And then I choked on a roast
potato.
‘It was all pretty grim,’ I said to Lacey, as we flumped into our form
room. ‘So grim that I only managed half my usual portion of trifle.
Which is saying something.’
‘But you went back for the rest later, right?’
‘Of course I did,’ I said. ‘Things are bad enough, I can’t risk
malnutrition too.’
‘And Amanda’s going to be working for him?’
‘She’s handing in her notice at the café today. I tried talking her out
of it but all she’s interested in is whether he’ll give her a staff discount.
As far as she’s concerned, getting a twenty per cent reduction on the
latest Alabama Shakes album is more important than the fact that
there is this man in our flat, groping our mother.’
‘Mad Jaz alert,’ said Lacey, which is our code for when Mad Jaz is in
the vicinity. OK, it’s not much of a code.
‘What’s she doing here? I thought Jaz was done with school?’
‘Look! Nicole’s filming her. This should be good.’
We watched as Jaz opened a can of Fanta and poured it into Ms
McAllister’s top drawer. Then, like she’d finished her work for the day,
she turned around and left.
‘She is so mad,’ said Lacey. ‘And that is such a waste of Fanta.’
‘What is?’
‘Katie? Earth to Katie?’
‘Adrian drinks Fanta,’ I said. ‘And then he does this hissing gas thing
through his fingers.’
‘You need to forget about him,’ said Lacey. ‘Focus on Savannah’s
party. Or writing a song. Or your new fringe.’
103
But I couldn’t. He was all I could think about. How, when we went
for a walk in the park, Mum and Adrian had held hands. And how, when
Adrian took Amanda into his shop to show her how to work the till, she
was so excited she’d given him a hug.
And, last night, when it got later and later and later, and Adrian
didn’t leave and didn’t leave and didn’t leave, and at midnight, when I
knew he was next door in Mum’s room, in her bed, all I could think
about were those two nose hairs lurking, just a metre away, in the
dark.
104
Autocorrect
You ask if I’ve finished and I say can you wait
But before I can stop you you’re clearing my plate
You ask am I happy? and I say I’m trying
Your voice says that’s great but your eyes know I’m lying
I guess if you want to earn my respect
Can you maybe turn off the autocorrect?
When you talk to your folks I couldn’t be better
The undisputed star of your epic Christmas letter
My behaviour’s amazing, my grades are great, too
It’s kind of a pity that none of it’s true
I get that there’s stuff that you have to protect
But please can we turn off the autocorrect?
It’s late and I’m lonely and though you’re next door
There’s nothing to link us but walls and a floor
I don’t want to lose you but I know I might
No way will we talk when he’s here for the night
Mum, if you want me and you to connect
You will have to turn off the autocorrect.
105
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marianne Levy spent her twenties as an actor. She was in
various TV shows, did some comedy on Radio 4 and made
a brief appearance in the film Ali G Indahouse, where she
managed to forget both her lines. She then worked as a
continuity announcer for Living TV, introducing, and getting
obsessed with, America’s Next Top Model. She’s been the
voice of a leading brand of make-up, a shopping centre and
a yogurt. Marianne is the author of the Ellie May
youngfiction series for Egmont and a regular contributor to
the Independent on Sunday. She lives in London with her
husband, daughter and a bad-tempered cat. Accidental
Superstar is her first novel for older readers and she is
working on the sequel.
Twitter: @MarianneLevy
Website: mariannelevy.com
BURNING MIDNIGHT
BY WILL MCINTOSH
For fans of The Maze Runner and The 5th Wave, this debut YA
novel from Hugo Award-winner Will McIntosh pits four
teens against an evil billionaire in the race of a lifetime.
Sully is a sphere dealer at a flea market. It doesn’t pay much
– Alex Holliday’s stores have muscled out most of the
independent sellers – but it helps him and his mum make
the rent. No one knows where the brilliant-coloured
spheres came from. One day they were just there, hidden
all over the earth like huge gemstones. Burn a pair and they
make you a little better: an inch taller, skilled at maths,
better-looking. The rarer the sphere, the greater the
improvement – and the more expensive the sphere.
When Sully meets Hunter, a girl with a natural talent
for finding spheres, the two start searching together. What
they find will change more than just their lives . . . Because
the entire world fights over spheres, but no one knows why
they’re here or what their powers are . . . until now.
CHAPTER 1
Sully pulled the thin wad of bills from his pocket and counted.
Thirteen bucks. He’d hauled his butt out of bed at six a.m. on
a Saturday to make thirteen bucks in seven hours. He couldn’t
work out how much that was per hour, but he knew Dom made
more stacking yogurt and cream cheese at Price Chopper.
The flea market was depressingly empty. Most of the other
vendors were parked on lawn chairs, their feet propped on
tables. Sully spent enough time sitting in school, so he was
standing, arms folded.
The timing of this epically bad payday couldn’t be worse.
It would have given his mom a lift, for Sully to hand her a
hundred bucks to put towards the rent or groceries.
He still couldn’t believe Exile Music had closed. Nine and
a half years, Mom had worked there. By the end she’d been
their manager, their accountant, their everything. But she had
no accounting degree; she didn’t even have a high school
diploma. Where was she going to find another job that paid
half of what she’d been making?
Sully took a deep, sighing breath and stared down the long
aisle.
A girl around Sully’s age turned the corner and headed in
his direction. He watched her walk, head down, beat-u p
backpack slung over one shoulder. There was a swagger to her
walk, a little attitude. Or maybe the combat boots, the black
109
gloves with the fingertips cut off, the mass of dark braids
bouncing off her back like coils of rope provided the attitude.
As she drew closer, Sully looked at his phone instead of
staring. It was hard not to stare.
To Sully’s surprise, she slowed when she reached his stall.
She eyed the orbs he kept locked under glass, running her
tongue over her teeth. She was wearing loose- fitting cargo
trousers and zero make-up. Her brown angular face was
striking, her take- no- shit scowl a little intimidating. Not your
usual flea market customer.
He cleared his throat. ‘Anything I can help you with?’
She studied him, squinted, as if he was slightly out of focus.
She unslung the bag on her shoulder and knelt out of sight in
front of his table.
When she reappeared she was clutching a sphere – a Forest
Green. Enhanced sense of smell. Sully didn’t have to consult
the book to know it scored a three out of ten on the rarity chart.
Retail, he could easily get six hundred for it.
‘How much?’ she asked, holding it up.
His heart was hammering. This one deal could make his
whole weekend. ‘Wow. You find that in the wild?’ She didn’t
strike him as a collector or an investor.
She nodded. ‘It was caked in mud. I thought it was an Army
Green.’ Which was a big fat one on the rarity chart.
Resistance to the common cold. Sixty bucks.
‘Man, you must have died when you cleaned it off.’
‘How much?’ she repeated, with the slightest of nods to
acknowledge his comment.
110
Sully tried to remember how much cash he had on him.
Two fifty? Maybe two seventy. Usually that was more than
enough, because who brought a Forest Green to a flea market?
His gaze flicked between the Forest Green and the girl’s
face. ‘Two fifty?’ His voice rose at the last minute, making it
sound more like a question.
The girl chuckled, bent to pick up her pack. ‘I can get three
twenty- five from Holliday’s.’
Sully flinched when she said ‘Holliday’s,’ but to her credit,
she said it like it hurt her mouth.
‘Hang on. I can go to three fifty, but I can’t get you the last
hundred till tomorrow.’ He’d have to borrow it from Dom.
The girl put a hand on her hip. ‘I’m sorry. Did I give you
the impression I thought three twenty- five was a fair price?
Let me rephrase: even the bastards over at Holliday’s would
give me three twenty- five.’
Sully laughed in spite of himself. They were bastards. The
brand-n ew store they’d opened in Yonkers was a big part of
why Sully’s earnings had taken a nosedive. And Alex Holliday
himself was more than a bastard. Sully squelched any thought
of Holliday before that particular train of thought could start
running down the track.
He did some quick calculations. This girl could list the Forest
Green on eBay and get at least four fifty. Minus eBay’s cut,
that would leave her with about four hundred.
‘OK. Four twenty- five.’ Two hundred dollars profit. He
could definitely dance to that tune.
The girl scowled, opened her mouth to counter. Sully raised
his hand. ‘Don’t even try to tell me that’s not a fair offer.’ He
looked her in the eye. ‘We both know it is.’
111
She held her scowl a second longer, then broke into a smile.
It was a terrific smile, complete with dimples. ‘You got me.
Four twenty- five.’
He pulled the cash from his pocket, started counting it out.
‘Like I said, I can give you two fifty now, the rest next
Saturday.’
The girl’s eyebrows came together. ‘I hope you’re not
thinking I’m going to give you this marble now. If you’ll have
the cash next week, I’ll come back with the marble then.’
Sully licked his lips, which were dry as hell. If she left,
there was always a chance she wouldn’t come back. It had
happened before; it was never a good idea to give people time
to find a better offer.
‘Look, I’ll give you a receipt. I’m good for it; I’m here
every weekend.’ Sully spotted Neal across the aisle, unpacking
used DVDs from a cardboard box. ‘Neal!’
Neal lifted his head. He was wearing Ron Jon sunglasses
despite being indoors, in a cavernous room that was not
particularly well lit.
‘Can she trust me?’ Sully asked, holding his palms out.
Neal stabbed a finger in Sully’s direction. ‘You can trust that
man with your life.’
From the next booth over, Samantha shouted, ‘And that’s
the truth!’ and crossed herself. Samantha was Neal’s wife, so
her testimonial was somewhat redundant, but the girl with the
Forest Green didn’t need to know that.
Sully turned back to the girl. She folded her arms. ‘I
wouldn’t trust my grandma with that kind of money.’
112
‘Hey, Sully?’ Sully hadn’t noticed the kid hovering at the
corner of his booth. He was twelve or thirteen, Indian, holding
a replica sphere – a Cherry Red. ‘Would you sign this?’
‘Sure.’ Sully reached for the replica and a Sharpie the kid
offered, feeling a flush of pleasure that the girl was there to
witness this.
‘You sure you can trust me with this?’ Sully asked as he
signed.
The kid laughed.
Sully blew the ink dry, tossed the kid the Cherry Red, said,
‘Thanks, man. Thanks for asking.’
‘What was that about?’ the girl asked, motioning towards
the kid, who was disappearing around a corner.
Sully held out his hand. ‘David Sullivan.’ When the girl
only looked at his hand, he added, ‘I’m the guy who found the
Cherry Red.’
‘I know who David Sullivan is.’ She sounded annoyed. ‘A
millionaire for ten minutes, until Alex Holliday’s lawyers
stopped payment on the check. Tiny Tim ripped off by New
York’s favourite billionaire.’
The words stung like hot sauce on a wound, but Sully
couldn’t deny she was just stating the facts without any sugar
coating.
She held the Forest Green by her ear like a shot- putter.
‘Moving on. We got a deal? I’ll see you Saturday?’
‘Tell you what.’ Still trying to shake off her words, Sully
took out his key ring, unlocked the display case, and pulled out
his two most valuable spheres – a Lemon Yellow (grow an
inch) and a Slate Grey (singing ability). Both were rarity level
two; together they were worth about two sixty. ‘Take these as
113
collateral. They’re worth way more than one seventy-fi ve. I’ll
trust you.’
She considered, looking down at the spheres, then back up
at Sully. She scooped the spheres out of his hand and stashed
them in her pack. After exchanging numbers in case one of
them couldn’t make it next week, Sully counted the cash out
on the table. She stuffed it in her back pocket and, finally,
pressed the cool Forest Green sphere into his slightly sweaty
palm.
‘See you next Saturday,’ she said, and turned away.
Sully watched her go, her wrists flicking as she walked.
‘Hey,’ he called after her.
She turned.
‘What’s your name?’
She smiled. ‘Hunter.’
‘As in, marble hunter?’
She pointed at him. ‘You got it.’
‘Maybe we’ll do more business in the future, then?’
Hunter nodded. ‘Works for me if your offers are straight.’
Sully nodded. ‘See you Saturday.’
When Hunter was out of sight, he held the Forest Green up,
rotated it, admiring.
‘She’s a beauty,’ Neal called over. His buzz cut always
seemed wrong to Sully; his bright, open face just cried out for
long, surfer- dude hair.
‘I nearly choked when she pulled it out. I’ve never had a
Forest Green before.’
‘I wasn’t talking about the marble,’ Neal said, laughing.
Sully grinned but said nothing. She was fine, no doubt
about it, but not his type. Too serious. Sully liked to laugh.
114
‘I met my first wife at a flea market.’ Neal put his hand on
top of his head. ‘She was . . . dazzling. Long auburn hair,
freckles dusted across her cheeks.’
‘You do know I can hear you, right?’ Samantha called from
behind her table, which was covered in tarot cards, crystals,
incense.
Neal acted like he’d been jolted out of a trance. ‘Sorry.’ He
grinned at Sully. ‘Did I say dazzling? I meant frumpy. Face
like a Mack truck. Anyway, back then I was selling Grateful
Dead memorabilia – ’
‘And pirated concert tapes,’ Samantha interjected.
Sully laughed. ‘The Grateful who?’
Neal didn’t take the bait. He knew Sully knew who the
Grateful Dead were, because he’d lent Sully one of their CDs.
He also knew they put Sully to sleep.
Samantha crossed the aisle and, without a word, set a
sandwich wrapped in tinfoil on Sully’s table. She always
made an extra for him.
‘Thanks, Samantha.’ She patted Sully’s shoulder as she
passed.
Sully munched on a homemade meat loaf hero as Neal went
on with his story. Sully wouldn’t want to trade places with
Neal, but he had to admit, the guy had led an interesting life.
Well into his sixties, he’d never had a real job with a steady
paycheck. He and Samantha lived in a little camper that Sully
knew well from the many times they’d invited him to hang out
after the flea market closed.
After ten years of sharing an apartment with his mom,
Sully’d had more than enough of living in cramped spaces. As
of last Tuesday, they were in danger of losing even that. If
115
something didn’t give, by summer they’d be living in the
basement of his weird uncle Ian’s house in Pittsburgh. That
couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t. Sully’s friends were in
Yonkers; his life was in Yonkers.
He tossed the Forest Green in the air and caught it, relishing
the hard, perfect smoothness as the sphere slapped his palm. It
was a start. Later, he’d call a few of his regular customers and
see if anyone was interested in it. If not, he’d put it in the
display case. It wouldn’t be hard to sell. The values on the rarer
spheres just kept rising, and Sully kept his prices ten or fifteen
per cent below the big retailers’.
They’d get through this; they’d keep the apartment. In two
years he’d graduate from Yonkers High with Dom by his side.
116
CHAPTER 2
Sully slid one of the huge, flaccid, greasy fries off Dom’s plate
and bit it in half. Normally he wouldn’t go near the ode to
grease and swine parts that was the school cafeteria’s hot dog
platter, but he was starving. He’d forgotten his lunch, and
couldn’t bring himself to blow half of yesterday’s paltry
earnings on a chicken sandwich and a Coke. He turned in his
seat, eyed the wrapped sandwiches and steaming steel serving
bins. He was sorely tempted to get something. He couldn’t
afford to buy school lunch, though. He and his mom might not
be able to afford anything if Dom didn’t loan him money for
the Forest Green, unless he sold it before Saturday. Sully hated
selling in a panic; it would mean knocking fifty, even a
hundred off the price.
Dom was talking to Rob Dalton, his sleeves rolled up to
show off his impressive biceps. Sully tapped him on the
shoulder. In profile you could mistake Dom for a tough guy,
with his thick eyebrows, meaty lips, and boxer’s nose, the big
jawline. But once he turned those open, friendly eyes your
way, the illusion was shattered.
‘I want to show you something.’ Sully unzipped his pack,
which was on the floor between his knees, and pulled the
Forest Green halfway out so Dom could see it.
Dom leaned closer, tilted his head, trying to see the colour.
‘Is that a Forest Green?’
117
‘Yup.’
‘Holy crap.’ Dom grinned at him, squinting. ‘A Forest
Green? Where did you get that?’
‘Someone brought it to my table at the flea market.’
Dom set his hot dog down, wiped his hands on his trousers.
‘Can I see it?’
Sully handed it to him under the table. ‘Keep it low – I
don’t want to get jacked on the way home.’
Dom rotated the sphere under the table. ‘How much does
one of these go for?’
‘Six hundred. Maybe six fifty.’ Sully felt slimy about
asking for the loan. It was a hell of a lot of money. Dom’s
parents were pretty well off, but they didn’t give Dom crap.
Sully took a big breath. ‘The thing is, I still owe the girl I
bought it from a hundred and seventy-fi ve. I’m supposed to
pay her Saturday.’
Dom shrugged. ‘I’ll spot you.’ He handed back the Forest
Green, pulled out his phone.
‘Really?’ Sully was relieved he hadn’t had to come right
out and ask.
‘Sure, no problem.’ Dom tapped keys on his phone, looked
up. ‘Give me your account number.’
‘I can pay you back as soon as I sell it. I’ll cut you in on
some of the profit.’
Dom gave him a look. ‘You’re not paying me interest.
You’re like my brother.’ He squinted, shook his head. ‘Come
to think of it, my brother’s an asshole. I wouldn’t loan him my
used gum.’ He laughed, clapped Sully on the shoulder.
‘I feel bad asking.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
118
Sully felt a warm glow of affection for this guy he’d known
since second grade. He could still picture Dom down in his
basement, making explosion sounds as their Hulk and SpiderMan action figures stormed a fortress they’d made out of
Legos. It would kill Sully if he had to move away.
He didn’t like thinking about what life would be like if they
moved in with Uncle Ian and his family. It gave him an awful
sinking, panicked feeling. He’d have to share a room with his
mother, with no privacy except in the bathroom or outside the
house. He’d have to go to a new school where he didn’t know
anyone.
The fire alarm sounded.
Sully was halfway out of his seat before he realized it was
one of the kids at the spoiled brats’ table, showing off his
Tangerine- driven ability to mimic sounds. Again. A couple of
weeks back, the lunch attendant had evacuated the whole
cafeteria before figuring out that it was some kid, not the fire
alarm.
Mr Boyce, Sully’s English teacher, approached the table
and stabbed a finger at the kids. ‘I hear that again, and I’ll put
you all in detention. It’s a felony to cause a false alarm,
whether you’re pulling a lever or using your mouth.’
As he stormed off, the kids laughed and made obscene
gestures behind his back.
‘Look at those twerps,’ Dom said, shaking his head. ‘You
can’t trust guys who always look like they just got their hair
cut. What do they do, get it cut twice a week?’
That got their whole table laughing. Sully had never
thought about it before, but Dom was right, their hair always
looked freshly cut.
119
Rob leaned in. ‘Have you guys seen Jayla Washburn yet?’
‘Have I seen her?’ Sully asked, confused.
Rob nodded. ‘Her parents got her an early Christmas
present. A pair of Cranberries. You’re not going to believe it.’
Cranberry. Better-looking. Rarity seven. How did these
people afford this stuff? Sully knew you could get twenty-,
thirty- year loans from the bank to buy spheres, but he couldn’t
believe people actually did that just so their daughter could be
prettier.
‘There she is.’ Rob pointed towards the cash registers,
where Jayla Washburn was paying, her back to them. She
lifted her tray and turned.
‘Holy – ’ Dom said.
Results varied when it came to Cranberries. In Jayla’s case,
she’d hit the jackpot. Her eyes were bigger and brighter, her
cheekbones higher, her chin smaller. She’d been OK-looking
before; now she almost looked like a model. She was grinning
like she’d won the lottery.
The bell rang. As kids grabbed backpacks, Mr Boyce
called, ‘Buses with blue tags in the window are going to the
Hammerstein. Have a good afternoon.’
Sully still couldn’t believe they were letting school out
early for Alex Holliday. It made him want to puke.
‘You guys going?’ Rob Dalton made a face. ‘I’m going to
the mall instead. I need sneakers. You want to come with?’
Sully looked at Dom, who shrugged. ‘Why not? I’m sure as
hell not going to the Hammerstein.’
Sully appreciated Rob and Dom not saying Alex Holliday’s
name. Everyone else in the school, especially the teachers, had
been saying almost nothing but Holliday’s name for the past
120
week. Big deal, Yonkers was giving its prodigal son some
lame award. Was it really so noteworthy that they closed
school early? It wasn’t the president, or Taylor Swift, or Kanye
West. It was a con artist with a lot of money.
No one seemed to understand what it felt like. They’d
shaken hands. Alex Holliday had handed him a check for two
and a half million. In that moment when Sully took the check,
everything changed. All of his and Mom’s money problems
had melted away.
Rent? No problem; in fact, they could buy a house, cash.
The old junker Ford he had to share with his mother broken
down, again? Buy two new cars.
College tuition for Sully, when he graduated from high
school? Paid for.
Then the Cherry Red hadn’t done what Alex Holliday
expected. It hadn’t given him, personally, any new abilities to
add to his repertoire. It had only reseeded the entire freaking
planet with new spheres – as many spheres as had appeared in
the first wave five years earlier.
And, poof, the money was gone. Check, voided. Next time
read the fine print, sucker. There would be no college for
David Sullivan.
Holliday had opened that old wound again just this week,
mailing Sully a gold- embossed VIP invitation to his
appearance. Front-r ow seats to hear how great Alex Holliday
is! Admission to the private reception afterward! What a petty,
bush- league move. Cheat a kid, then rub it in. Nice.
Sully hated Alex Holliday. Would throw a party if the man
died. Not that he was likely to die anytime soon, since he was
barely thirty and had burned the entire spectrum of health-
121
boosting spheres, from Aquamarine (quick healing) to Olive
(pain control).
Central Avenue was quiet, a cold wind keeping pedestrians
inside, traffic cruising along the wet street past the muffler
shops and fast- food restaurants.
‘Where’s Jeannette?’ Dom asked Rob as they walked,
hands in pockets, chins tucked against the wind.
‘She’s going to the thing,’ Rob said. ‘You know. Holliday.’
Rob muttered the name.
Dom glanced at Sully, who kept his eyes on the gumstained sidewalk.
‘That asshat,’ Dom said.
Holliday. Everywhere Sully went, Holliday. At this very
moment, the elite of Yonkers were falling over themselves to
kiss Holliday’s rich butt. Those without VIP passes would
have paid good money for Sully’s. He’d torn it into pieces and
flushed it.
Everyone knew Holliday had ripped Sully off, ripped off a
thirteen- year- old living in the Garden Apartments. No one
cared. Success was a whitewash for shitty behaviour.
‘I’d like to tell him what a thief he is to his face,’ Dom said.
‘I guess now’s your chance,’ Rob said. ‘When he asks for
questions you could raise your hand and ask why he’s such a
crook.’ He cackled at the idea.
Dom slowed. ‘You don’t think I would?’
‘Come on, Dom,’ Rob said.
‘Two and a half million dollars. That’s how much he owes
Sully.’
122
‘I know. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying you don’t
have the balls to call Alex Holliday a thief in front of a
thousand people.’
Dom slapped Sully’s arm. ‘Let’s go. Come on.’
‘No way.’ Sully didn’t want to see Holliday’s smarmy face
while everyone clapped. ‘All the way into the city for that? No
way.’ There was no venue in Yonkers swanky enough, so the
Yonkers Citizen of Distinction Award was being presented in
Manhattan.
He would like to hear what Holliday would say if Dom
called him out about the Cherry Red, though. The thing was,
Dom would probably chicken out.
Although maybe Sully should ask the question himself.
‘We’re going. “Not only are you a liar and a criminal, you
walk like a rooster.” That’s what I’m gonna say.’ Dom shook
his head, laughed. ‘Oh, man, this is gonna be great.’
He wouldn’t do it, though. Dom could talk a blue streak
with his buddies, but in class he sat in the back and clammed
up. He wasn’t much on public speaking. Sully was the talker.
He’d have to see how he felt when they got there, but if the
mood hit him he might just call Holliday out. What did he have
to lose?
‘Hang on,’ Dom said, ‘I have to take a piss.’ He cut into a
shallow alley beside Addeo and Sons Bakery, which was
festooned with Christmas wreaths and garlands. Sully and Rob
waited, Rob weaving slightly as he stood, as if he were
standing on the deck of a ship at sea, while Dom pissed against
a silver rubbish can and chuckled to himself.
123
A lone figure stood on a portable podium to one side of the
Hammerstein Ballroom on Thirty- Fourth Street. He was
young, holding a Bible, his polished black shoes pressed
tightly together.
‘Every time you absorb a pair of those titillating balls, you
welcome Satan into your soul. They are Trojan horses, sin in
your choice of colours.’
‘I’ve got a Trojan for your balls right here,’ a guy shouted
as he passed, setting off laughter among his friends.
Ignoring the crack, the preacher opened his Bible to a
bookmarked page. ‘In the book of Revelation, God warns,
“Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power, and
riches, and wisdom, and strength . . .” ‘ He held up a finger.
‘They are the mark of the beast, a sign that the end of days is
upon us.’
Sully found it interesting how split religions were on the
spheres. The pope thought they were OK, because they didn’t
go against anything in the Bible and didn’t hurt anyone. Some
of the evangelists on TV were like this guy on the podium;
others claimed the spheres came straight from God. If there
was a God, Sully didn’t think he had anything to do with the
spheres. They weren’t angels or devils; they were pretty
obviously things, even if no one could explain how they
suddenly materialized all over the world or why they gave
people enhanced abilities.
‘The arrival of the spheres is a sign. Judgment Day is upon
us, and Alex Holliday is a servant of Satan. He offers you the
mark of the beast!’ the guy on the podium shouted as Sully
and his friends pushed through the doors.
124
Sully couldn’t argue with the guy’s view of Holliday, even
if he didn’t buy into the Judgment Day stuff. Not that there
weren’t a lot of nonreligious people who were saying the same
thing, that the spheres were bad news. It was hard to turn on
the TV without hearing some pundit warning about pigs being
fattened for the slaughter. Sully only sold spheres – he
couldn’t afford to burn any – so he figured he didn’t have
anything to worry about, even if the doomsayers turned out to
be right.
There was a huge poster to the left of the ticket window,
advertising an Arcade Fire concert in a couple of weeks. All
seven band members had finally given in and absorbed
Lavender spheres (enhanced musical ability, rarity level two)
live on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Sully was dying
to hear their new album. He’d kill to see them live. But no, he
was going to see Alex Holliday live instead.
The Hammerstein had a high domed ceiling, plush
burgundy seats, four levels of balconies along the sides for
VIPs. It was packed. Sully, Dom, and Rob nabbed some of the
last general- admission tickets reserved for Yonkers High
students and found three open seats near the back on the
ground level. Holliday was already speaking, backlit by
animated slides. A lot of people thought he was goodlooking,
but Sully thought he looked like a cartoon bandit, his black
eyebrows dark and thick, as if drawn in with a fat- tipped
Magic Marker, his jaw peppered with black speckles like he
needed a shave. The black boots with heels didn’t mask that
he was short, despite the extra inch or two he’d got by burning
a pair of Lemon Yellows. His shirtsleeves were rolled up,
exposing muscular forearms. Chocolate spheres, which gave
125
you both enhanced strength and the build to go with it, were
rarity level nine. In today’s market they would set you back
three or four million each at auction, and of course if you
wanted to burn them you needed two, which meant six to eight
million.
The shoulders of Holliday’s tailored white shirt were
covered in a rainbow of the pearl-s ized brag badges his
company had pioneered. They spilled down the front of his
shirt in dueling swirls that met at the breastbone. Sully had
read that Holliday commissioned fashion designers to stylishly
incorporate the badges into his wardrobe.
Sully studied the brag badges, trying to see if there was any
colour the guy hadn’t burned.
Even from a distance Sully could see all of the super-r are
ones represented. Besides Chocolate, there was Mustard (high
IQ), Cranberry (better-looking – although in Holliday’s case
the results weren’t as striking as they’d been on Jayla), Cream
(athleticism), Vermillion (need little sleep), Periwinkle (good
with numbers). That was only the tip of the iceberg, though.
The guy seemed to have everything. He had all of the
enhanced senses (including good old Forest Green), and tons
of common, marginally useful stuff like Copper
(ambidexterity) and Taupe (artistic ability). There were fortythree sphere colours total, but Sully didn’t think he’d be able
to count the badges with Holliday moving around. . . .
Sully smiled, realizing one brag badge was missing. Cherry
Red. Was it because Holliday didn’t want to remind people
how he’d got it, or because it hadn’t provided him, personally,
with any benefit?
126
‘Spheres are the only truly magical things in the world that
you can hold in your hand,’ Holliday said. He was holding an
Aquamarine towards the audience. ‘You can set them on your
shelf and admire them while they appreciate in value more
reliably than any stock or bond. You can burn them and gain
remarkable abilities for the rest of your life.’ He looked around
the hall, let that sink in. ‘For the rest of your life.’ He shrugged.
‘They’re miracles. That’s not to say we don’t understand how
they work. We do.’ He made a sheepish expression. ‘Sort of.’
The audience erupted in laughter. They were acting like he
was some titan of business, an international celebrity. The
truth was, he was a regional player; he had maybe a hundred
stores in the Northeast, fifty in other parts of the country, and
none outside the United States. Yes, Holliday’s was expanding
fast, but he was still nothing compared with Jin Bao, who had
something like two thousand Wanmei stores all over the
world.
‘We know when someone burns a sphere, it alters them
physiologically. Some spheres alter receptor sites in the brain,
some influence glandular secretion, like Lemon Yellow,
which stimulates the pituitary gland.’ Holliday set the
Aquamarine down, spread his arms. ‘Not that some of us
couldn’t use a little more help than they provide.’ More
laughter. ‘Others go right to the source, altering the DNA in
our cells.’ He shrugged, let the silence build. ‘It’s still magic.
We understand what it’s doing, but it’s still magic.’
He was slick. Charming. Sully gave him that. But Sully
knew better than anyone what was underneath the thin veneer
Holliday showed the public. Seeing him strut around up there
made Sully’s skin crawl.
127
‘There are no shortcuts to finding spheres. If they were
hidden underground, geophysical survey techniques that
archaeologists use to find buried artifacts could be used. But
most are hidden in man- made structures, so they blend right
in, as you all well know.’ He held up a finger. ‘That doesn’t
mean we’re not working to develop more effective spherehunting technology. We’re always on the lookout for new
ways to deliver these miraculous orbs into your hands.’
Holliday made a sour face, took a breath. ‘You bored yet?’
There were shouts of ‘No’ from every corner of the room.
‘Well, I’m tired of hearing my own voice. How about some
questions?’
Fifty hands shot in the air, including Dom’s. Heart
thumping, Sully halfheartedly raised his as well. What were
the odds Holliday would pick him? Sully was certain Holliday
couldn’t pick him out of a lineup at this point. Sully was six
inches taller than he’d been the last time he and Holliday were
in the same room.
Holliday pointed at the third or fourth row. ‘Yeah, the
woman with the beautiful smile. You. Yes.’
A black woman stood, sporting three brag badges on her
sleeve. She was handed a wireless microphone from the aisle.
‘Are there any pairs that you haven’t burned?’ ‘Slate
Grey,’ Holliday said immediately.
Singing ability. Rarity two, under five hundred for a pair.
Sully wondered if there was anyone in the room who didn’t
know what ability went with every single colour.
‘Why Slate Grey?’ the woman asked.
He shrugged. ‘I guess I believe there should be at least one
thing you’re bad at, so you don’t get too cocky.’ He waved as
128
people laughed. ‘I’m kidding. To tell you the truth, I don’t
know. Superstition, maybe.’ Holliday turned and walked
towards the wings. He said something to someone out of sight,
then returned to centre stage. ‘I’ll tell you what. Come on up
here.’ He beckoned to the woman, who, after a moment’s
hesitation, hurried on to the stage.
A beefy guy in a black suit appeared from the wings
carrying a pair of Slate Grey spheres. He handed them to
Holliday, who offered them to the woman. ‘A gift for you, if
you’ll agree to sing us a song.’
Surprised, flustered, the woman accepted the spheres. She
lifted them and touched them to her temples.
There were no sparks. She didn’t fall backward or cry out
in orgasmic ecstasy. When she touched the Slate Greys to her
temples and then lowered them, their rich grey colour began
to fade. In an hour the colour would be faded and cloudy, and
the spheres would be worthless, except to people who
collected used ones, which was becoming a larger part of
Sully’s business every year.
‘Sing us something,’ Holliday said.
The woman nodded shyly, looked at the ceiling, and began
singing ‘Like a Rainbow.’ She was excellent – not pop- star
excellent, but smooth and clear, and right on every note. She
sang the first stanza, then gave Holliday a hug as the audience
applauded, and went back to her seat.
As the crowd quieted, hands shot up again, including
Dom’s. Holliday’s index finger drifted, pointing to the left side
of the auditorium, then right. ‘Someone’s whispering, “Pick
me, pick me”, under her breath.’ Holliday tapped the
Turquoise (enhanced hearing) brag badge on his shirt to much
129
laughter, then resumed pointing at the audience. Before his
roaming finger reached the back where Sully was standing, he
stopped and pointed at a girl halfway to the back. ‘Yes – the
woman in the red sweatshirt.’
The girl stood, accepted the microphone. She was Sully’s
age or maybe a little older, Asian, big- boned, very tall.
‘Clearly your Lemon Yellow was more potent than mine,’
Holliday said. The audience ate it up.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, but this is the result of good
nutrition and wholesome living,’ the girl shot back, looking
cool and relaxed. ‘I was wondering if you saw the article
published on Slate a few years back about how independently
owned sphere stores burn down at a rate six times higher than
stores selling other goods.’
Holliday shrugged, shook his head. The big smile had
vanished. ‘What’s your point?’
‘Have you seen the article?’
Holliday looked towards the ceiling, touched his chin.
‘Let’s see. Yes. June eighth, 2016, around ten a.m. I was in my
office drinking tea. Earl Grey.’ Laughter drifted from the
audience. Sully pinched the bridge of his nose, sickened by
Holliday’s smarmy display. They got it – he’d burned a
Canary Yellow (perfect memory, rarity level nine). ‘I read the
first paragraph. Everything sphere- related crosses my desk.
Again, what’s your point?’
The girl folded her arms. ‘My aunt’s store burned down a
few months after one of your representatives offered to buy
her out. He was really aggressive. Downright threatening.
Then her store burned.’
130
Holliday rolled his eyes, poked the inside of his cheek with
his tongue. ‘Let me make sure I have this straight before I
respond. You’re accusing me of burning down your aunt’s
store?’
‘That’s correct.’ The girl didn’t hesitate. A few people in
the audience gasped at her audacity. Sully couldn’t believe
how calm she was.
There was whispering and mutters as Holliday cleared his
throat, folded his hands in front of him, and spoke softly,
forcing everyone to be absolutely silent to hear him. ‘I am truly
sorry your aunt lost her store, but I hope you can under stand
if I take umbrage at your accusing me of a felony in front of
two thousand people. Holliday’s is not the only corporate
player in the sphere industry, and it has a reputation for being
the most principled. My weapon is my business model, not
gasoline and a match. My integrity is worth more to me than a
hundred stores.’
‘Bullshit!’ Dom shouted. ‘Bull. Shit.’
Stunned, his heart suddenly hammering, Sully watched
Holliday’s face go stony as his gaze lifted towards them. A
thousand people turned to look in Dom’s direction.
Dom put a hand on each of Sully’s shoulders. ‘You
recognize this guy?’
Holliday shook his head briskly. ‘I’m sorry? You have a
little too much Red Bull tonight, my friend?’
Dom shouted over the laughter, ‘This is David Sullivan!
Does that name ring a bell, Mr I-h ave- so- much- integrityit’s- squirting- out- my- butt?’
People booed.
131
Sully raised both hands. ‘Can I say something?’ No one
heard him.
‘You owe this man two point five million dollars!’ Dom
shouted, stabbing a finger at Holliday.
Holliday was staring right at Sully. Sully stared right back,
gave Holliday a little mock salute for good measure.
Holliday shook his head, looked away.
A rough hand landed on Sully’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
Two big, solid guys in black suits had pushed their way to
Sully’s and Dom’s seats. One was bald with a goatee, the other
– the one who’d grabbed Sully – sported a bleached- blond
crew cut. Two more just like them waited in the aisle.
Holliday’s bodyguards.
‘Who are you?’ Dom asked, knocking the bald guy’s hand
off his shoulder.
‘Event security.’ The bald guy curled a finger at them.
‘Let’s go. Outside.’
‘What the hell is event security?’ Dom said, nice and loud.
He looked the guy up and down. ‘You’re not police. You’re
just guys in suits.’
The bald guy grabbed Dom by the front of his sweatshirt
with both hands and yanked.
Dom threw a punch and nailed the bodyguard in the face,
sending him stumbling into the seats.
The blond bodyguard grabbed Sully’s arm. Without
thinking, Sully reached with his free hand and pulled the guy’s
pinkie back, hard. The bodyguard shouted in pain, let go of
Sully. As soon as Sully eased up, the guy spun around,
lightning fast, and grabbed Sully from behind, putting him in
a headlock.
132
‘Hey, let him go.’ Rob grabbed the arm around Sully’s
neck, tried to pry it off. The bodyguard shoved Rob, sending
him tumbling over the seats.
Black spots peppered Sully’s vision as he was shoved
towards the fire exit.
‘So much for your goddamned integrity.’ The voice
sounded like the Asian girl’s. She shouted over the rumbling
crowd and Dom’s cursing, ‘That’s David Sullivan? The kid
you cheated? Perfect. Tell us more about your pristine ethics
while your goons beat on a welfare kid.’ Out of the corner of
his eye, Sully glimpsed another bodyguard racing up the aisle
towards the girl. ‘Somebody call the police. Don’t touch me.’
The blond guy pushed the fire exit door open with his hip.
Sully reached back and grabbed for his face, but only brushed
his nose before the guy shoved his head through the half- open
door. Sully landed on one knee on the concrete alley.
Behind him, Dom was dragged out, shouting and swinging,
by two bodyguards. A third pushed the Asian girl through. As
soon as the door clicked closed, the two bodyguards went to
work on Dom, punching him from both sides.
Sully lunged, shouting, but the blond bodyguard shoved
him back. ‘Stay out of it.’
The guy was way bigger than Sully, and built like a steer.
Sully got low and kicked him in the knee. It felt like he was
kicking a fire hydrant. The guy let out a grunt and grabbed his
knee as Sully ducked around him.
Before he could get clear the guy tackled him, driving him
to the ground. Sully’s nose hit the pavement and erupted in
searing pain. A second later a knee was in his back. His kidney
133
exploded in agony as the guy landed a punch. Two more quick
blows followed.
‘Now stay down!’ the bodyguard screamed into his ear.
The knee in his back lifted. Sully grunted, trying to take a
breath. For a moment he couldn’t, then his chest expanded in
a spasm and a tight squeal escaped him.
He heard Dom grunting with effort, or in pain, the girl
cursing, shouting, the smack of fists landing.
Applause rose inside the auditorium. Evidently the great
Alex Holliday had concluded his Q-and-A session.
‘Crap. We gotta get back,’ one of the bodyguards said. He
turned to Sully, pointed. ‘Lesson over. Don’t screw with Alex
Holliday.’ They headed off at a jog towards the front of the
building.
‘Should I call nine- one- one?’ It was the Asian girl, her
face close to Sully’s.
Sully struggled to his hands and knees, touched his nose. It
was bleeding, but from the feel of it, it was just a bad scrape.
‘I’m OK.’ He looked at Dom, who was sitting on a concrete
step, head down, one hand over an eye. He pursed his lips, spit
blood on the ground, pressed on one of his front teeth.
‘You all right?’ Sully asked.
Dom looked at him. ‘Just peachy. Marvellous.’ He let out a
guffaw. ‘Jerks.’
The girl went to Dom. ‘Let me see your eye.’ Dom
took his hand away, tilted his head up.
‘I think you need stitches.’ She turned to Sully. ‘Let’s get
him to the emergency room.’
When they tried to help him up, Dom brushed them off.
‘I can walk.’
134
Sully limped along between Dom and the girl.
‘I’m David Sullivan, by the way. Sully.’
‘Mandy Toko.’
‘Dom.’ Sully wasn’t surprised Dom didn’t give his last
name. He rarely had since sixth grade, when his uncle made
the name Cucuzza infamous. Dom’s upper lip was swelling;
blood from the cut over his eye dribbled down his temple.
Dom stopped short. ‘Crap.’
‘What?’ Sully asked.
Dom raised his eyebrows. ‘You feeling a little chilly?’ ‘Our
coats,’ Sully said.
‘I’ll get them,’ Mandy said. She was wearing hers, which
was long and black. ‘I’ll catch up.’ She turned and jogged
away. They watched her for a minute, her long strides eating
up ground. She looked like an athlete.
They turned and walked.
‘Basketball team?’ Sully asked.
‘Maybe. Did you see her go after the douche who was
whaling on me?’
‘No. She punched him?’
‘She punched him in the throat.’ ‘I
missed that,’ Sully said.
‘She’s kind of cute.’
‘Sure.’ One downside to having Dom as a friend was that
he was immediately interested in – and quickly established
dibs on – every girl they met.
Dom pulled out his phone. ‘We forgot about Rob. He has
no idea where we are.’ Dom filled Rob in about their injuries
and said he’d call him later.
135
When they reached Thirty- Fourth Street, they paused.
Sully had no idea where the nearest hospital was. He asked a
guy wearing a fedora and a pin-s triped suit, who pointed them
towards a walk- in clinic.
Dom touched the cut above his eye, looked at his fingers.
‘I’m gonna hurt like hell in a couple of minutes. Right now my
face just feels kind of warm.’
Sully’s nose didn’t feel warm. It hurt. He was fairly sure it
wasn’t broken, though; he’d heard you knew immediately
when your nose was broken.
Behind them, a voice shouted, ‘Hey!’
They waited for Mandy to catch up. She held out their
coats. Sully thanked her as he pulled his on.
‘So where do you go to school?’ Dom asked, falling back
on the tried- and- true conversation starter. ‘St. John’s.’
‘A prepper,’ Dom said. He looked her up and down.
‘You’re one of those smart people, aren’t you?’
Mandy shrugged. ‘I guess.’ She looked at Sully. ‘I didn’t
realize the David Sullivan lived around here.’
Sully rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah. There was supposed to be a
press release. I don’t know what happened.’
A couple of years earlier, Sully had stumbled on to an
article on Slate while Googling himself. It was about weird
fame – people who were known for things that had nothing to
do with talent or ability. The article mentioned Steve Bartman,
who was famous for leaning out of the stands and deflecting a
foul ball that cost the Cubs a chance to play in the World
Series, and Monica Lewinsky, who had an affair with Bill
Clinton that almost got him impeached. And Sully, who,
instead of sticking his hand in front of a foul ball, had stuck it
136
inside a storm drain under an overpass and pulled out the rarest
sphere in the world.
Warm air hit Sully as he stepped into the hallway of his
apartment building. His nose was throbbing, and he was totally
whipped. Starving as he was, he didn’t know if he could stay
awake long enough to eat dinner.
‘Sul- ly.’
Sully raised his head, found Mike Lea and Laurie Heath
sitting crossways on the stairs to his apartment.
Mike stood, his phone in hand. He was a year older than
Sully, pitched on the school’s baseball team. Sometimes Sully
and Mike were friends, and sometimes Mike acted like he
didn’t know who Sully was. ‘Sully, man. You’re going viral
on YouTube.’ He turned his phone so Sully could see himself,
caught in a headlock, struggling to break free.
Evidently word spread fast. He’d turned his phone off on
the way into the auditorium and forgot to turn it back on. He
pulled it out and turned it on now. He had about a hundred
texts.
Mike stepped closer. ‘Man, your nose. Those goons did
that?’
Sully touched his nose. ‘The sidewalk did it, but the goons
helped.’
Laurie stepped closer as well, inhaling in sympathy. ‘You
should clean that up right away.’
Sully nodded. ‘I’m guessing my mom is going to run for
the Bactine as soon as she sees me.’
137
Laurie nodded. It had been two years since Laurie broke
Sully’s heart, but there was still a slight whiff of awkwardness
when they talked.
The door at the top of the stairs opened; Sully’s mom burst
out. ‘Sully?’
‘I’m fine, Mom.’
As his mom came barreling down the stairs, Sully thought
she was going to hug him, but she stopped short and held up
her palm for a high five.
Confused, he slapped her hand.
‘Good for you. I wish you could have got on the stage to
bend that little bastard Holliday’s finger back, but good for
you.’
‘Thanks, Mom.’
Grinning, Mike patted Sully’s shoulder. ‘I’m gonna get
going.’ He made a fist. ‘Way to go, Sully.’
Laurie gave Sully a wave and followed Mike out.
‘You’ve got seven thousand and some hits already,’ Mom
said as the front door clicked closed. She studied Sully’s face.
‘Come on, let’s get your nose cleaned up. No broken bones?’
‘Dom took most of the punches.’
‘Bull. Shit,’ Mom said, mimicking Dom’s Italian American
Yonkers delivery. ‘That was priceless.’ She looked back at
Sully as they climbed the stairs. ‘He’s OK, though?’
‘He’s fine. Just some stitches.’
Once Sully’s nose was bandaged, they ate dinner on tray
tables at the couch, watching a rerun of CSI: NY like they
always did. Pretty much all they watched were CSI reruns, plus
Marble Hunters and a few of the copycat sphere- hunting
shows.
138
Dinner was spaghetti, which was definitely not like always.
For as long as Sully could remember, Friday had been takeout pizza night. Sully didn’t say anything; his mom was
hurting enough.
Sully only half watched the show. Seeing Laurie had stirred
up some of the memories from that time when he’d been
border line obsessed with her. It had been the first time Sully
truly understood how painful love could be. He’d been
shocked by how much it hurt. Until Laurie, having a girlfriend
had just been something you did, like an extension of being
friends.
His first girlfriend, if you could call her that, had been Kait
lin Bie. They’d both been nine when Kaitlin’s older brother
dared them to kiss on the swing set in their backyard.
Kaitlin’s dad had seen them from the living room window,
though, and their relationship ended right then and there.
Then there’d been Jen Posner, when he was thirteen. After
walking around with a crush on Jen for a couple of months,
Sully had mustered the nerve to send her a candy- gram – one
of those Valentine’s Day fund- raisers where you pay a dollar
to send a flower or candy to someone during class. She’d sent
one back the very next period. Unless Sully counted the peck
he’d given Kaitlin on the swings, Jen was the first girl he’d
ever kissed. He’d been so blown away by the sheer act of
kissing a cute girl with big brown eyes and exactly the right
amount of freckles that it had taken him about two months to
realize he was bored out of his mind whenever she was around
and they weren’t kissing.
Breaking up with her, seeing the disappointment on her
face, had been awful. It was nothing compared with the day
139
Laurie broke up with him, though. Laurie had seemed like his
entire world back then. Every love song he heard had been
about Laurie. Her face had floated like an overlay on Sully’s
vision all day long. Since Laurie, he’d hung out with a couple
of girls as more than friends, but it had never got close to
serious with any of them.
After dinner Sully went to his room and read through his
messages, shooting texts back to friends, answering the same
question over and over, about where he learned the pinkie
move. He had no idea where he’d learned it; in the heat of the
moment he’d seen that finger on his shoulder and wanted to
snap it off the guy’s hand.
It should have felt good, reading message after message
about what a badass he was, but it didn’t. When you cut right
through it, Holliday had kicked them to the kerb. His
bodyguards had taken out the rubbish while the audience
cheered.
Sully sat up on his bed, then went over to his little desk,
where the used Cherry Red sat on a shot glass that served as
its pedestal. He picked it up, turned it in his hand.
It was hard to believe this marble and its only match had
reseeded the entire planet with new spheres. The first wave of
spheres had just about dried up when Holliday burned the
Cherry Reds.
Sully remembered the start of the second wave like it was
yesterday. At first he didn’t realize he’d been cheated by
Holliday, and he went out hunting along with everyone else.
You could probably find a couple of spheres in your own
house that first day, and by the time it was dark and Sully came
home, exhausted and dehydrated from a frantic day of hunting,
140
he was carrying six spheres in a pillowcase, including a rarity
three (Mint, more outgoing).
Now the second wave was getting thin. Sully was
beginning to wonder if there would be a third.
Once a month Sully had a dream about finding the Cherry
Red. There were all sorts of variations: who was with him and
where he found it, but the dream ended the same every time:
he’d suddenly realize he was dreaming and cling to that Cherry
Red as hard as he could, willing himself not to wake up. He
always woke up, though.
141
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will McIntosh’s debut novel, Soft Apocalypse, was a finalist for both
a Locus Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He
is a frequent contributor to Asimov’s, where his story ‘Bridesicle’
won the 2010 Readers’ Award, as well as the 2010 Hugo Award
for Best Short Story. His third novel, Love Minus Eighty (based on
‘Bridesicle’), published by Orbit books in June 2013, was named
best Science Fiction novel of the year by the American Library
Association and was optioned for film by Film4. His recently
published novel, Defenders, has been optioned by Warner Brothers
for a feature film.
Will was a psychology professor for two decades before turning
to writing full-time. He lives in Williamsburg with his family.
Twitter: @willmcintoshSF
Website: willmcintosh.net
KILL THE BOY BAND
BY GOLDY MOLDAVSKY
Kill the Boy Band is the boldest, funniest and most shocking
YA debut of the year.
Fangirls get a bad rap all the time – people say we’re weird,
hysterical, obsessed, certifiable. But those people don’t understand.
Just because we’re fangirls doesn’t mean we’re crazy.
It’s important you know that up front. Because everything I’m
about to tell you is going to seem . . . well, crazy.
From thrilling debut author Goldy Moldavsky comes Kill
the Boy Band, a pitch-black, hilarious take on modern
fandom and the badass girls who have the power to make –
or break – the people we call ‘celebrities’.
1
People have called me crazy.
It’s understandable; fangirls get a bad rap all the time. They
say we’re weird, hysterical, obsessed, certifiable. But those
people don’t understand. Just because I love something a lot
doesn’t mean I’m crazy. And I did love The Ruperts a lot. I
loved them more than soft-serve vanilla ice cream in summer,
more than seeing a new review to one of my fanfics, more than
discovering a good ’80s movie I’d never seen before.
Just because I was a Ruperts fangirl does not mean I was
crazy.
I think it’s important that you know that up front. Because
everything I’m about to tell you is going to seem . . . well,
crazy.
Rupert Pierpont was in our hotel room.
You’re probably curious about how we pulled this off. It’s
145
not every day you get to be alone with a member of the most
popular boy band ever.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
It’s not every day you get to be alone with the biggest flop
in the most popular boy band ever while he is blindfolded and
bound to a hotel armchair.
I know what you’re probably thinking: What made him
such a flop? But we’ll get to that. First, Erin and Isabel and
Apple and I just stared at him, waiting for him to regain
consciousness.
We hadn’t turned on the lights yet, so the room was only
lit by the afternoon sunlight peeking through the wood-framed
windows. It splashed the gray carpet and parts of the plumpurple walls, turning them violet. Overall, though, the place
was dark. You could say it matched the current vibe.
The only sound in the room came from the clicking noises
on Isabel’s phone. The screen wasn’t much more than millions
of cracks, and the skin was a homemade paper-and-Scotchtape
collage of Rupert L.’s bare chest, but Isabel clutched her phone
like it was the most precious thing in the world to her. It
probably was. She held the screen to her face as she typed,
which cast her in an eerie, campfire-blue glow. She was the first
to break the silence. “What is he wearing?”
“Hip-hop,” I said.
146
Literally, the words “HIP-HOP” dangled at the end of the
chain around his neck. Rupert P. was nothing if not a walking
identity crisis. Just two weeks ago he’d been all about the punk
thing, with spiked hair and bleached eyebrows. But today he
was buried under a jersey, saggy pants, high-tops, and, of
course, the chain that spelled the whole ensemble out for you.
It felt all wrong, though. The jersey wasn’t even a basketball
jersey; it was a child-size hockey jersey for some team called
the Red Wings. Leave it to Rupert P. to get an identity crisis
wrong. “An aggressive style choice.” “He tried it,” Isabel
snorted.
“I think he looks cute,” Apple said, her already full cheeks
going fuller with her smile.
“We’re all well aware that you do,” Erin said.
It was hours or maybe just minutes, but after what felt like
an agonizingly long stretch Rupert P. started to stir. He rolled
his neck, tried to move his arms; slow at first but then all jagged
and frantic and stuck. I was kind of in awe, watching it all. I had
no idea tights could make such sturdy knots.
Finally, the perfectly pruned eyebrows that stuck out over
the top of his blindfold (BTW, tights also make really good
blindfolds) rose in fear, or realization. And the first thing he
said was:
“Griffin?”
147
We all looked at one another. Isabel’s phone lost its
magnetic hold on her eyes long enough for her to roll them,
but there were the beginnings of a smirk curling her upper lip.
She went back to thumb-typing with a renewed relish. Apple’s
forehead crinkled, and having no food on hand to munch on
(her go-to when things get stressy), she did the next best thing:
She chewed on a strip of her dyed auburn hair. But the two of
them were in my periphery because my eyes were focused on
Erin. I told her this was a bad idea. But Erin doesn’t listen so
much as ignore. She says I still have my baby teeth. I tell her
there’s nothing wrong with being nice. Erin says, “Fuck nice.”
Usually she’s straightening my collar or tucking my hair
behind my ear when she says it, though, and the word “fuck”
coupled with “nice” has never sounded so reassuring.
Right then, though, when it mattered most, Erin said
nothing. She only smiled.
Erin was all shine and pale golden hues, but her face really
lit up when she smiled. Her mouth—lips always painted red—
was the standout feature on her face. When she talked, it
moved in subtly unexpected ways, like she’d grown up
speaking another language, or had an accent once upon a time
and English was this new exotic tongue. It was transfixing. I
know because I’ve seen the way boys look at Erin when she says
things—often the most innocuous things. They stare at her
148
mouth. Girls stare too. I think part of the reason Erin took to
liking me straightaway was because I always focused on her
eyes. Unlike every other part of her, they were dark and did
not cast spells.
But her smile was like a cavity, a sweetness you were
sometimes hesitant to peer into for fear you’d plummet to its
sugary depths. Truly a bummer that Rupert P. was too
blindfolded to see it.
“No, not Griffin,” Erin said. Singsong. Sweet. Flirty.
Screwed up if you thought about it, but somehow fitting.
Every part of Rupert P. got very still very suddenly, except
for his chest, which rose and fell so fiercely it was like it was
hooked up to a defibrillator. I could feel the outburst coming.
CLEAR!
“Who the hell are you people?!” Rupert P. yelled, his posh
London accent catching on “hell.”
Here’s the truth: None of us liked Rupert P., except for
Apple, and if I’d had a choice about which of The Ruperts to
kidnap, I certainly would not have picked him. Rupert P. was
that one boy band member that every boy band must inevitably
have: the Ugly One. Historically, ugly boy band members have
often tried to distract from their faces by doing the absolute
most with their hair (beards, extensions, never-cute braids),
but Rupert P. couldn’t even be bothered to put that mess under
a hat.
149
Flop sweat prickled at his temples, staining the copper hair
there a darker shade of mahogany. Rupert P.’s hair was a
mushroom cloud of red, which made his face the catastrophic
bomb that caused mass hysteria. Okay, I know that’s mean, and
Apple would disagree with me, but ginger guys just don’t do it
for me.
Apple, though—bless her heart—she really loved him.
Her devotion was truly an inspiration, not only to me but to
fangirls everywhere.
Apple knelt down before Rupert P. “It’s okay,” she said.
“Everything is juuust fiiine.” Her open palm hovered over his
white-knuckled fist until slowly, so slowly, she lowered her
hand on top of his. Judging by the sharp intake of breath, the
furrowed brow, and the little embarrassing noises coming out
of her mouth, I was pretty sure Apple had just reached climax.
Rupert P. didn’t seem to have the same enthusiasm for
touching Apple, though. “Gerroff!” he roared.
As I watched Rupert P. try to break free from his restraints,
one of The Ruperts’ songs popped into my head.
I’m all tied up in your lovin’, girl
I’m all tied up in you
But don’t ever let me free, girl
Let’s take these chains of love and tie you up too
150
I was holding someone captive and all that was going
through my mind was a Billboard Top 40 love song.
I was going to hell.
I knew all along that this was bad, but now that Rupert P.
was awake and talking it made it all the more real.
We couldn’t keep him.
I would tell the girls how I felt, convince them that this was
a stupid thing to do, even for us. I didn’t usually take a stand—
that was Erin’s role—but we needed to do the right thing here.
We were all fifteen, but I was turning sixteen sooner than the
rest of them, which meant I was the oldest person there. I had
a responsibility to be mature about this. Erin was my best
friend—she’d back me up. And Isabel would do whatever Erin
said. I mean, what were we even going to do with him? No one
in this room except for Apple even liked him. Midterms were
coming up. I really did not have time to go to hell.
“What do you want?!” Rupert P. shouted. “Do you want
me to sing for you? I’ll sing for you!”
“Holy flopping hell, is he for real?” Isabel said. She glanced
toward Erin and her eyebrows danced on her forehead. I didn’t
get it, but Erin smirked. An in-joke. The four of us had lots of
in-jokes, but this one seemed exclusive only to the two of
them. I wondered if Isabel and Erin had marathon chat sessions
without me, chock-full of in-jokes. I wondered what they’d do
151
if I mentioned letting Rupert P. go. Would they look at me
funny? Would Isabel cast a glance Erin’s way, make her
eyebrows dance? Would Erin smirk back?
“Is it money?!” Rupert P. said. “Is this a ransom?! Are you a
Mexican drug cartel?!”
He had absolutely no idea who we were. At least we had
that going for us. If we let him go now we could get away with
this, sweep it under the rug, get off scot-free, et cetera, et
cetera.
“Please, I’ll give you anything you want! Just don’t cut off
my pinky! Bloody hell, don’t cut off my hair.”
“We would never touch your hair!” Apple said, her voice
taking on a mouse’s squeal, the way it did whenever she got
overly excited. “I mean, maybe just the rattail?”
You’d be forgiven to think he had an actual tail coming out
of his lower back, but in this case Apple was only talking about
the strip of hair down the back of his neck. I tried to spare you
this detail for your own benefit, but now it’s come up.
“Would that be okay?” Apple continued. If there were
scissors anywhere in this room, that rattail would’ve been in
her hands (and possibly in her mouth) an hour ago.
Rupert P. heaved in some breaths, and then the weirdest
thing happened: He started to laugh. “Oh. I get it. You’re just
fans, aren’t you?”
Shit. He had us pegged.
152
I tugged on the elastic bracelet on my left wrist and snapped
it against my arm repeatedly, trying to think. I had to do
something before we gave ourselves away completely. The
more minutes that passed the more I realized that all of this was
very wrong. Today wouldn’t just be the day I kidnapped a
ginger. Today would be the day I set a ginger free. That was
what was going through my mind, at least. In reality, though, I
still cared too much about what my friends would think if I
brought any of this up.
“Fans!” Rupert P. yelled. “Stupid-bloody-snot-nosedcrying
girls! You’re all psychopaths, the lot of you!”
Isabel’s face tore open with a grin, not because she was
happy about being called a psychopath—Isabel could be kind of
sadistic, but even she wouldn’t be happy about that—but
because, as I suspected, she was thrilled to see a real live boy
bander lose his shit. A famous celebrity calling his fans psychos
was a newsworthy thing. A headline. A scandal. And there was
nothing Isabel liked more than scandal. “Gee, Rupert P., tell us
how you really feel.”
“D’ya wanna know how I really feel about fans?” Rupert P.
said.
Isabel nodded eagerly and held her phone a few inches from
his face, the little lines on her voice recorder app peaking
spastically in the same rhythm as my heartbeat. “Please speak
clearly,” she said.
153
“There’s Catholic schoolteachers,” Rupert P. began. “Then
below that, there’s paparazzi, and below that still there’s
homeless people, and miles and miles below that there are fans.
You’re the scum of the bloody earth, is what you are, innit? As
soon as I get free, d’ya know what I’m keen to do? I’m keen to
murder all of you. Yeah, yeah, forget telling the police. I will
just tie you all up like you did me and set you on fire. And then
I’ll just watch as you burn. How does that sound?”
Harsh.
Isabel tapped the red button on her screen to stop
recording. “Well, that should get me a few hits.”
“You can’t post that!” Apple said. “This is obviously a very
distressing situation for him. Can’t you see how scared and
vulnerable he is right now? Nobody likes being tied up—least
of all celebrities.”
“Wait, was I being recorded just now?” Rupert P. said.
“You have got to be kidding me. Let me go!”
He was getting increasingly agitated, and all we could do
was watch, dumbfounded, like this was another Ruperts
performance. “I have places to be!” Rupert P. whined. “I was
meant to meet up with Michelle! Ugh, she’s going to kill me!”
Michelle Hornsbury, Rupert P.’s girlfriend.
Actually, that should read: Michelle Hornsbury, Rupert
P.’s kind of/not really/alleged girlfriend.
154
I’d almost forgotten about her, but I should’ve known
she’d be around here somewhere. She followed Rupert P.
everywhere he went.
My phone buzzed in my jeans, and I dug it out to find a new
text message from my mom. She worked long hours, and being
a nurse didn’t afford her many opportunities to call in, so texts
were the next best thing.
You girls having fun? it read.
My mom thought I was having a sleepover with a friend.
Which was technically true. I’d just neglected to tell her that
this sleepover was taking place in a hotel in downtown
Manhattan. Lying to my mother was easy, mostly because she
never asked follow-up questions. Something as simple as,
Which of your friends’ houses are you staying at? Can I have their
parents’ number? Are you sure they won’t mind having you over? It is
Thanksgiving, after all would have been enough to catch me in
the lie. But that was the thing about being the kind of girl that
never gets into trouble: Parents trusted you.
The truth is my mom probably didn’t ask any questions
because she likely felt guilty about having to work extra shifts
over the Thanksgiving holiday. Also, I was showing an interest
in something that involved the very social act of meeting up
with actual friends instead of talking to them through phones
and computer screens. Mom liked me best when I was social
and happy, and the therapist I was seeing twice a week agreed
155
with her. It’s something that I’ve admittedly struggled with
after everything that happened with my dad.
I texted back.
So much fun!
I wasn’t watching Erin, so when she whizzed past me it
snapped my attention back to her. The hot pink tights she tied
around Rupert P.’s mouth didn’t exactly go with his freckled
skin tone, but I guess that was beside the point when they were
being used as a gag.
Tights were really so much more useful than I ever thought.
Erin yanked on both ends tight, splitting Rupert P.’s lips
into an awful grin. “Group meeting,” she said. “Right now.”
156
2
Group meetings weren’t a thing we usually did. Actually, we’d
only had a group meeting one other time.
Almost exactly a month before, the four of us got together
at Chocolateburg in Manhattan to hatch a plan to meet The
Ruperts. Erin and I rode in together on the subway from
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn—a short ride across the river, but
Apple and Isabel were already there by the time we showed up.
The boys were having their Thanksgiving half-hour live
spectacular in one month’s time, straight from NBC Studios in
New York City, and none of us had been able snare tix. You
can see why this meeting was an emergency.
Isabel giggled as she dipped her spoon into her drink, an
order that consisted of runny chocolate, two scoops of
blueberry ice cream, and caramel drizzling off of it. She lifted
her spoon a few inches over her bowl and watched as the gloopy
mess dripped back into it. “This is some Willy Wonka
realness.”
157
It was weird seeing Isabel giggle. Hell, it was weird seeing
Isabel in a normal, nonstalkery setting. The four of us were
friends, but aside from Erin and I, who went to the same school
in Brooklyn, none of us ever got together in the real world
without the promise of the boys being close enough to stalk,
and that only happened whenever the boys had a single to
promote. When we did meet up in person, it was usually
outside somewhere, standing in the freezing cold, huddled
behind barricades for hours on end, armed with nothing but
cell phones and CD cases, wielding sharpies like weapons, and
passing the time by discussing optimal ambush tactics. It was a
lot like going to war. At least, that’s what I imagine going to
war is like. Stalking boy bands was serious business.
Anyway, our friendship lived and breathed primarily in
Twitter DMs and text messages. That might sound strange, but
talk to any Ruperts fangirl and she’ll tell you just how
important the Internet was in all of our lives. Without it we
probably never would’ve even heard of The Ruperts.
The band was formed on the reality show So You Think the
British Don’t Have Talent?, a weekly talent competition that aired
in the UK, where the boys were from. They had each competed
separately for the fifty-thousand-pound grand prize, but the
producers decided to group them together into a boy band
because the four boys were around the same age and all had the
same first name. As the now famous story goes, SYTTBDHT’s
158
host looked out into the audience one night, saw all the signs
that featured the name “Rupert” on them, and said, “Seems the
Ruperts are getting a lot of love tonight!”
The crowd went nuts, a million lightbulbs went on over the
heads of music execs, and The Ruperts were born.
The group consisted of Rupert Lemon, the baritone who
had auditioned with an opera/jazz fusion thing of his own
making; Rupert Kirke, who came onstage with an acoustic
guitar and got a standing ovation before his song was even over;
Rupert Xavier, who explained in his intro reel that along with
singing he was also interested in modeling and would be the
first contestant in the history of the show who would showcase
both of those talents at once; and Rupert Pierpont, the juggler.
I don’t mean juggling figuratively; I mean he came onstage
with three bowling pins. Let us be clear on something: There
were millions of talents that Rupert P. did not possess. One of
those was singing. The only reason he was lumped together
with the other three boys was because his unimaginative
parents looked at him when he was born and bestowed upon
him the most common name in England that year. Being named
Rupert was the luckiest thing to have ever happened to him.
Their names may have been the same, but as they liked to
reiterate in interviews, the Ruperts had their own distinct
personalities.
159
Rupert P.’s likes and passions began and ended with
juggling.
Rupert X. was the pretty boy/rebel.
Rupert L. couldn’t tell time.
And Rupert K. was . . . well, he was a life ruiner.
Rupert K. was beautiful. He had ruddy cheeks, but the cute
kind that looked like he’d always just come from running a
marathon out in the cold. He’d had braces when he was twelve,
so his teeth were straight and perfect. He had brown hair that
he liked to keep short and that he was always pushing back off
his forehead, especially when he didn’t want to answer a
television interviewer’s question. He loved fantasy video
games, folk music, and baking thumbprint cookies with his
grandma. When he smiled, sometimes he would bite the inside
of his right cheek. He had a beauty mark on the nape of his
neck, right where his heartbeat pulsed on his carotid artery. It
was the shape of California and the size of a pinky nail.
Recently, he’d taken to wearing porkpie hats on the crown of
his head, something a lot of his fans were copying. He wore
sunglasses a lot because his pale green eyes were super sensitive
to the sun. He had a tiny scar beneath his lower lip that he got
when he fell off the jungle gym when he was six. And he
seemed to take pleasure in ruining my life with how perfect he
was. Like I said. He was a life ruiner. All of the aforementioned
things would’ve been enough to have me melting over him,
160
but what really put Rupert K. into the man-of-mywildestdreams category was something he’d said in one of the
first interviews he’d done.
“Happiness isn’t always easy,” he’d said. “But it’s a
priority.”
That resonated with me. It felt like he got me.
“Let’s focus, girls,” Erin said, commanding even the
attention of some of the Chocolateburg diners at the table next
to ours. Erin was always commanding attention. “The boys will
be here in a month. Is there any possible way to get tickets?”
Tickets to Coming to America: The Ruperts Learn about
Thanksgiving! were free and distributed online by a third party
not affiliated with NBC. All 550 tickets were gone 2.7 seconds
after they went up. You couldn’t even buy them on StubHub.
It was the biggest crisis we’d ever faced as fans.
“The only way to get tickets is if we find four fans willing
to give them up,” I said. “So, we’re never getting tickets.” I
didn’t know why we were even bothering with this group
meeting, but I didn’t say anything like that.
“We could offer to buy the tickets off them,” Apple said.
She would suggest something like that. There were very few
things in life that Apple’s parents could not buy her.
Unfortunately for all of us, these tickets were one of those
things. This is as good a place as any to give you some stats on
Apple and her career as a Ruperts fangirl:
161
Favorite member of The Ruperts: Rupert Pierpont
Number of times she’s seen The Ruperts in person: 18
Number of times she’s met (this includes getting anything
from a selfie to a hug) all/a member of The Ruperts: 8
Apple came from the outrageous ode to wealth and vanity
that was Greenwich, Connecticut. She’d grown up there ever
since her parents—an elderly, magnanimous couple—adopted
her from an orphanage in Beijing when she was one year old.
As the story goes, Apple’s parents were browsing the
orphanage when they spotted the chubbiest baby they’d ever
seen eating a piece of fruit out of the trash. I’ll give you one
guess which fruit.
Living all the way in Connecticut never stopped Apple
from seeing The Ruperts in New York. Actually, she’d been to
every performance of The Ruperts in New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania. (Once she even trekked as far as Montreal.)
Erin and I met Apple at one of The Ruperts’ shows. It was an
outdoor performance for the Today show and Apple had pitched
a neon orange tent as big as a circus in Rockefeller Center four
days prior to the concert so that she could be in the front row.
It got her on the news.
A reporter interviewed her in front of her tent, asking,
“Why are you so devoted to this band?”
“Because,” she’d said, “I’m a Strepur for life!”
“Excuse me?” the clueless newsperson said.
162
“Strepur. It’s what Ruperts fans call themselves. It’s
‘Ruperts’ spelled backward.”
The newsperson stared, blinked, smiled, and concluded the
interview by asking a passerby how he felt about the growing
population of Strepurs.
“I’m all for strippers,” the man said.
The clip was a mini viral sensation.
Anyway, Erin and I had convinced our moms to let us leave
for the city at two in the morning the day of the Today show
concert so we could get a good place in line. (When I say
“convinced,” I mean that Erin told her mom that she was going
and I just waited for my mom to leave for her overnight shift.)
By the time we got to Rockefeller Center, there must’ve been
at least a thousand people there already. And there, at the front
of the line, was that huge James and the Giant Peach of a tent. It
was a lighthouse beacon, shining the way to the Promised Land.
Erin grabbed my hand. Any time she did that it felt like she was
pumping life into me. Because if you think about it, the only
reason to grab your friend’s hand is when something big is
about to happen. At first it was scary, but eventually I just
started letting her take me. It was almost always worth it. So
we waded through the sea of girls all around us, on a quest to
reach the tent in the middle of Rockefeller Center.
Apple was all alone in her tent and only too happy to share
it with fellow Strepurs. Inside, the walls were wallpapered
163
with posters of Rupert P.’s face, which would’ve normally
been offensive, but I ignored it because it was warm, we were
in the front of the line, and the tent got restaurant delivery
service.
We’d been friends with Apple ever since.
“Do you think a thousand bucks would do it?” Apple asked,
back at Chocolateburg. “Is a thousand too—”
“No one is going to sell those tickets,” Erin cut in. “Not for
all the money in your parents’ bank account.”
“We could smoke some ticket holders out,” Isabel said.
“Threaten to destroy their lives if they don’t give ’em up.” You
think this is a joke.
This is not a joke.
Isabel had a certain cred on the Internet that stemmed from
her massively followed and oft-suspended Twitter account.
Oft-suspended because it delivered no shortage of creative
(some might say shocking) threats to Ruperts haters or Ruperts
celeb girlfriends. Isabel’s current favorite target was Rupert
L.’s newest girlfriend, Ashley Woodstone. (Or, Ashley
“Prancing in the” Woods, Stoned, as she was also commonly
known.) Ashley was an actress with questionable new age
ideals, and even though she’d only just started dating Rupert
L., Isabel already hated her more than she hated anyone else in
her life. Which was saying a lot. Isabel’s infamous tweets
ranged from the cartoonish and impossible:
164
Im going to pull ur tongue out of ur mouth
wrap it around ur neck n strangle u w it so hard
ur eyes will pop out. i will pee in the sockets.
To the quaint:
Get ur fcking hands off him bitch i will cut u.
#RupertLisMine
To the cryptically disturbing:
I watch u in your sleep.
I would never condone Isabel’s scary tweets, but you had
to give the girl credit for managing to stay under 140 characters
every time.
At this point you may be asking just how much harm a
fifteen-year-old fangirl could really do. That is the wrong
question to ask. People can do a lot of harm if pushed to the
breaking point, and us fangirls lived at the breaking point. If the
boys were involved in a scandal, we were at a breaking point.
If they got haircuts, we were at a breaking point. If they smiled,
we were at a brea . . . You get the idea. Boy band fangirls are
a species that are more focused, determined, and powerful in
large numbers than just about any other group of people I can
think of.
And anyway, Isabel wasn’t just any regular fangirl. She was
kind of a legend on the Internet for being one of the most
aggressive Ruperts stans out there. Also, her entire family was
165
allegedly made up of criminals. Or maybe that was cops. I don’t
know, we never really asked her, but either way, if they
weren’t on one side of the law, they were on the other, and
that meant Isabel came from tough stock.
You may be asking why I would be friends with a
deaththreat-happy girl like Isabel. That one is a little harder to
answer.
The day I met Isabel was the day I’d skipped class for the
first time ever.
Erin met me in front of school that morning and tugged me
away from it. “The boys are in town,” she’d said. “And I know
where.”
Obviously, I had to go.
Cut to us sitting on the ground, leaning against the brick
wall of a building on the corner of Avenue B in the city, no boys
in sight. I was beginning to question Erin’s claim when Isabel
came to stand in front of us.
Before I ever saw Isabel’s face, I saw her boots.
They had too many useless zippers and buckles and straps useless because the boots looked like they were falling apart.
The faux leather tongue spilled over the laces, and the parts
over the sides of her ankles folded over too, so that it looked
like she’d stuffed her feet into two badly bruised bananas that
were halfway peeled.
166
My eyes swept up over the rest of her—the holey jeans, the
cheap-looking denim jacket (it was too blue; the cheap ones are
always too blue)—until they rested on her face, and even then
I couldn’t see it. She was backlit by the sun, so I had to shield
my eyes to look at her. Protecting myself from her, even then.
“You guys looking for The Ruperts?” Her voice was deep,
skeptical.
It turned out that Erin and I were in the right place, but we
would have never been able to get a good look at the boys if it
hadn’t been for Isabel. She led us to an alleyway, climbed over
a Dumpster and then up a fire escape, and when we followed
her, Erin and I got our first ever glimpse of the boys. They were
kicking around a soccer ball in a courtyard. Our view was
partially obscured by a building in the way and they were far
from us, but it was the best moment of my life up until that
point. I felt so light, watching Rupert K. come in and out of
view, that if a strong gust of wind had blown right then, I
would’ve flown right off that fire escape.
The prize for best fan went to Isabel, easy. She knew how
to get to The Ruperts. And the truth was, we were lucky to
have her on our team.
Stats on Isabel:
Favorite member of The Ruperts: Rupert Lemon
Number of times she’s seen The Ruperts in person: 68
167
Number of times she’s met (this includes getting anything
from a selfie to a hug) all/a member of The Ruperts: 34
(often multiple times in one day and with a total disregard
for school attendance records)
“We can’t just threaten people,” I said in a hushed voice,
hoping the other Chocolateburgers couldn’t hear me. “We’re
just going to have to face the fact that we’re not getting into the
concert. We can’t go.”
“The fight hasn’t even started and you’re already tapping
out?” Isabel said.
“I’m not tapping out . . .” Maybe I just didn’t want to get
my karate gi all wrinkled if I knew it was a losing battle. (In my
mind, the metaphorical fight she was talking about was a karate
match, not a wrestling one. Karate just seemed so much more
dignified.)
“You’re always too chickenshit to do anything,” Isabel said,
rolling her eyes. “Your goody-two-shoes mentality is getting
way tired.”
“Isabel, kindly shut up,” Erin said.
I loved Erin in that moment. Because nobody told Isabel to
shut up. If anyone did, they’d probably end up on the floor,
Isabel standing triumphantly over them with knuckles freshly
bruised and bloody. But Erin wasn’t just anybody. Isabel curled
her upper lip and went back to her phone.
168
I squeezed Erin’s knee, a nonverbal thanks, and she, in turn,
squeezed mine: no probs.
“The boys will still be in New York, there’ll be other ways
to meet them,” Erin said. She dunked a Twix bar into her milk
shake and bit off the end of it, making us wait for her to go on.
She fixed us with a smile, sly and satified, and asked us a
question we already knew the answer to. “Where are they
staying?” “The hotel!” All of us said it at the same time.
We turned to Isabel, “Isabel?”
“My sources won’t know where the boys will be staying
yet, but I’d put my money on The Rondack.”
Aside from threatening people’s lives every day on Twitter,
Isabel ran the most popular Ruperts update site on the Web.
She knew stuff about the boys before the boys even knew it
themselves.
“The hotel is our best bet,” I said, “but everyone goes there.
It’s going to be packed.”
“We could get a room at the hotel,” Apple said. “We’d be
free to roam around, find out which rooms the boys are in,
corner them in hallways, and force them to comply with our
every whim.” She smiled to herself, lost in a daydream/the
boys’ probable nightmare.
“I don’t think a hotel is a good idea,” I said. “Maybe we
could—”
“I think a hotel is a fantastic idea, actually,” Erin cut in. I
watched her, trying to interpret this new eagerness in her.
169
Erin was never this gung ho about things. Her MO was cool
and aloof.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But we won’t be able to check into
a hotel. We’re minors.”
“I can get Consuela to check in for us,” Apple said.
Consuela worked as a housekeeper for Apple’s family, but
while that may have been her official title, her role in Apple’s
life stretched much farther than that. Consuela was Apple’s
chaperone when she went to Montreal to see the boys in
concert. Consuela was actually the one who stayed in the tent
at the Today show for the first two days before Apple got there.
And Consuela was the one who’d nearly gotten herself
arrested at Toys “R” Us when she smacked a fellow holiday
shopper with her purse trying to get to the last limited edition
Rupert Pierpont doll that Apple needed for her collection.
Consuela was basically an honorary Strepur, whether she
wanted to be or not.
“How much money is that going to be?” Isabel asked.
“Because I can’t -”
“I’ve got it covered!” Apple said.
“We’ll all chip in for a room,” I said. Erin pinched me
under the table and Isabel shot me a dirty look, but I didn’t
care. It wasn’t fair to make Apple always pay for everything.
Apple grinned at me, and that settled it.
“We’re getting a room!” Erin said.
170
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Goldy Moldavsky has a BA in Journalism from Brooklyn
College. Her non-fiction work has most recently appeared
in MovieMaker magazine.
Twitter: @GoldyWrites
Website: goldymoldavsky.com
UNDERWATER
BY MARISA REICHARDT
Breathe
You are OK
You are not dying
What happened that day can’t be changed; can’t be unseen.
But Morgan survived, and now she needs to find a way to
move on – and forgive the unforgivable.
But Morgan can’t forgive, and she can’t move on. She
can’t even move beyond the front door of the apartment
she shares with her mother and her little brother. She feels
like she’s underwater, unable to surface.
Just when it seems Morgan can’t hold her breath any
longer, a new boy moves in next door. Evan reminds her
of the salty ocean air, and what it feels like to be alive. He
might be exactly what Morgan needs to help her face the
future.
Underwater is a powerful, hopeful debut novel about
redemption, recovery and finding the strength it takes to
face your past and move on.
CHAPTER ONE
I just moved. Not from one town to another, but from one end of the
couch to the other end. I don’t usually sit on this side, but I’m trying to
listen in on the apartment next door. I’m rather par tic u lar about where
I sit because I like things to be to the left of me. I need to be able to see
what’s there.
The walls of our two-b edroom apartment are thin and covered in
the standard off-w hite paint of a rental unit, but I still can’t make out
the words on the other side. I can only decipher the pitch of the voices.
One is high.
One is low.
Girl.
Boy.
And then I hear feet hitting the linoleum floor and the noise of the
screen door as it slaps open followed by the double bang of it shutting
back into place.
Someone knocks on my door. Their knuckles thrum against the
flimsy wood, and the echo of it rings hollow through my apartment.
Yes, I can open the door. But I c an’t cross the threshold. That’s my
rule: Nothing will ever hurt me if I don’t cross the threshold.
I press my shoulder against the door and grab hold of the knob.
“Who is it?”
“Evan.”
“I don’t know you.”
“No kidding.” He laughs. “I just moved in next door.”
174
I peek through the peephole. It offers up a long, distorted version
of whoever is out there. It’s not the best view, but I can tell his
hands are empty. That’s good.
Even though Evan will eventually segue from new person to
neighbor, I’m not eager to get the introduction ball rolling. This kind
of attitude is exactly what guarantees that, by the end of the month, Evan
will think of me as the weird chick with the frizzy hair who never goes
outside. I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone e lse in my apartment
building thinks of me. They leave every day, and I stay here. They come
home, and I’m still here doing the same thing. But right now, Evan d
oesn’t know all of that, so I should probably open the door even though
the thought of it makes my hands sweat. I pull it open a crack. A tiny
crack.
Whoa.
Evan is cute.
And he looks my age.
The peephole didn’t do him justice.
He runs his hand through his hair. It’s fluffy and brown with golden
sun- bleached tips. His skin is tan, sun-d renched like his hair, and his
nose is peeling. He must’ve moved from the beach. Literally. Like, he
had a hut on the sand. Something about the way he smells makes me
want to stay near him. He reminds me of things I miss. I breathe him in,
relishing the aroma of earth and ocean and bonfire smoke.
“Um, hey,” he says. “Are you sick or something?”
I consider shutting the door in his face. How can he call me out so
fast?
“Why?” I can hear the edge in my voice, the back- offness to my
tone. It’s enough to make him straighten up and push back on his flipflopped feet.
175
“Sorry. It’s just - it’s Wednesday. Shouldn’t you be at school? Are
you home sick?”
Of course he meant was I physically sick, like with pneumonia or
explosive diarrhea. Not mentally sick.
“Why aren’t you at school?” I say.
“Because I’m moving in today and starting school tomorrow.”
He says this like I should get it. “I can’t do both at the same time.”
I realize I’m not being the most welcoming neighbor. “Sorry,” I
mumble. “I don’t do well with strangers.”
“Does the fact that I now live next door make me less of a
stranger?”
“Not really.”
“Okaaay.” He runs his hand through his hair again like he’s
frustrated. But also like he’s trying to understand. It’s the same way my
mom looked at me on Thanksgiving four months ago when I told her I
couldn’t take the trash out to the dumpster anymore.
“What was it you wanted?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and one of those golden- tipped curls comes
loose and falls down over his eye. He shoves it back behind his ear. “Is
that your car out back with the tarp on it? It says 207 on the space
number. That’s you, right?”
“Uh- huh.”
“Cool, because my mom needs me to unload the U-Haul. I don’t
want to scratch your car. Can you move it?”
My heart rate speeds up instantly. It pounds through my chest like
rain on the roof. Evan can probably hear the fast and furious thump of
it. I wipe my palms against my flannel pajama pants and grasp for
excuses. I actually feel like I’m stretching up, reaching for apples on a
really high branch.
176
“I can’t. I’m sick. I can’t leave. I can’t move my car.”
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It’s my mantra now.
Evan looks at me. Brow creased. Perplexed. “Wait, I thought you
just got mad at me for assuming you were sick. Now you really are
sick?”
“Yep.” I cough. “Super sick. And it’s really contagious. You
probably shouldn’t get too close.”
He scoots back a c ouple inches. In the courtyard below, the
sunlight smashes against the surface of the swimming pool and shoots
a reflection at Evan’s feet so it looks like he’s standing in a
puddle. “You don’t wanna move your car?”
“I can’t.”
“But like I said, it’s in the way.”
“How about if you move it?” Yes, brilliant. Good job, Morgan.
Being quick on my feet is a skill I’m getting progressively better at as
the months pass.
“You want me to move your car? You just called me a stranger five
seconds ago. What if I steal it and sell it on Craigs list?”
“You won’t. Let me get the keys.”
I shut the door and grab the keys from the rack my mom hung in
the kitchen after one too many mornings of frantically searching the
apartment for lost keys. When I crack the door back open, my breath
catches again, because he really is cuter than he should be.
Stop it, Morgan.
I hold the keys up to Evan, but when he reaches in to grab them,
my body goes on high alert.
I flinch.
I flutter.
I drop the keys at my feet.
177
He bends over, calm and steady, eyes on mine the whole time, as
he reaches past the threshold to grab them.
His fingertips graze my bare toes.
I jump back.
I breathe fast.
He stands up.
He straightens out.
“Hey, is the pool heated?” he asks. “Or am I gonna freeze my face
off if I jump in?”
The pool. I try to ignore it. It taunts me. But I can practically feel
the cool water sliding through my fingers and down my back as soon as
Evan mentions swimming. I imagine him yanking off his shirt and
jumping in. Then I try to unimagine it.
“It’s warm enough, but it’s too short to get a good workout. And
too shallow to pull off a flip turn. Plus you have to scoop the leaves out
yourself.”
“You sound like you know something about swimming. Are you
on a team?”
“Not anymore.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because. Just bring the keys back whenever, okay? Or, if you sell
it, bring me the cash.”
“I’ll get you a good deal.” He laughs. “I don’t back down too easy.”
I shut the door and hope my car will start. My mom takes it out
once in a while to keep it running, but it’s old. She’s actually
threatened to sell it. She says we could use the money. I’m pretty
sure she’s bluffing. For her, selling my car would be the same as
giving up. She’d rather hang on to hope.
178
My mom hopes I’ll go back to school when it’s time to be a senior.
I do online high school now. Going to my other school got to be
too hard. I can’t control things out in the real world. Cars turn corners
too fast. Doors slam. People appear out of nowhere. It’s unpredictable.
I don’t like unpredictable.
Home is predictable enough. Until just now when I realized we
have new neighbors. And there’s a teenager like me next door. Well,
not really like me, because I’m pretty sure Evan actually leaves the
house. He looks like he surfs and watches bands play at crammed clubs
with entrances in backstreet alleys that require secret passwords. He
looks like he rides his skateboard in the empty parking lots of places in
town that have gone out of business or zooms down steep hills for an
adrenaline rush. So not really like me at all.
Because he has a life.
I go to school online and eat tomato soup and a grilled cheese
sandwich for lunch every day.
I form an assembly line along the coffee-s tained Formica of the
kitchen counter just the way my dad taught me. Bread. Butter. Cheese.
Piping hot griddle.
I like the sound of the sizzle of the butter as it hits the pan. It’s a
reminder of how quickly things change. One second you’re w hole, the
next second you’ve melted.
I like to put extra cheese on my sandwich so it drips out over the
sides. That way, I can scoop it up, twirl it around my fingertip, and suck
it into my mouth. I also dunk the toasty bread into the soup, sopping up
what’s left in the bottom of the bowl. I eat on the couch where the TV
is in front of me and the closed curtains are behind me. I’m a shut-in.
I’m unaware if it’s foggy, sunny, cold, or hot outside unless I’m
specifically paying attention. Nothing changes inside my living room. I
have a television lineup, online school, the same lunch, and scheduled
179
ten a.m. and two p.m. check-in phone calls from my mom every
weekday.
My psychologist visits twice a week.
Her name is Brenda.
She has a hard edge and soft eyes.
She has tattoos that snake up and down her arms until they get lost
underneath the sleeves or the collar of whatever shirt she’s wearing.
She comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays after lunch.
At one p.m.
She’ll be here tomorrow.
We’ll sit on the couch and she’ll make me turn off the TV.
I hate that.
Sometimes Brenda forces me to say things that make me cry. But
usually, talking to her calms me down. She also checks up on my
medicine to be sure I have enough emergency pills. I need them
sometimes. On bad days. Brenda can’t prescribe them for me because
she’s not that kind of doctor. She’s a psychologist. My regular doctor
gave me the prescription after he talked to Brenda.
Today feels different because Evan is next door.
I can hear the bang bang of him hammering nails into the wall. I
can hear the thump thump of him bounding up the stairs. I can hear the
slap slap of his screen door as he goes in and out, back and forth, up and
down the stairs.
Evan is next door. He smells like the ocean.
This runs through my head for the rest of the day. It’s what I hear
as I sop up soup and sift through soap operas.
I assume he’ll bring my keys back when he’s done hauling things
inside. But when hours pass and he doesn’t return, I wonder if maybe
180
he did sell my car. Or at least moved it someplace far away. That
would almost be a relief.
But, eventually, there is a knock at my door.
“Who is it?” I ask, as if anyone else ever comes by unannounced.
“Me again. I have your keys.”
I flick on the porch light because the even ing shadows have set in
and I want to be able to see him better. He’s a bit sweatier for wear, but
his hair is still fluffy and curly and falling into his face in a way that
makes me avoid eye contact. He dangles my Pacific Palms High School
key chain out in front of him.
“Sorry it took so long, but I put her back where she belongs,” he
says. “That Bel Air is a classic. How’d you end up with such a sweet
ride?”
“It was my grandpa’s.”
I know nothing about cars. I only know things about this part icu
lar matador-r ed Bel Air because my grandpa told them to me one
million times so I could commit the words to memory.
“What year is it?”
“A fifty- seven.”
“Your grandpa must’ve been one cool dude.” “He
was.” I smile and shut the door.
Evan knocks again. He knocks loud and long. I open the door
because I c an’t not notice him. There’s something pulling me closer to
the threshold, and I can feel it. There’s a tingle in my big toe. I look
down and see I’ve practically got one foot out the door. I yank it back
inside, stunned that I even tried.
We stand. We stare.
“Why’d you shut the door like that?” he asks.
181
Thankfully, my little brother comes soaring through the courtyard
right then. His arms are spread out wide like an airplane. His mouth
makes the sputtering noises of the engine, and his lips spritz spit into
the sky. My mom comes in behind him in dirty hospital scrubs. Her
hair is knotted, sloppy, on the top of her head, and my brother’s
superhero backpack strains against one of her shoulders. She’s not a
nurse. She does the gross stuff. From Monday through Friday, she mops
up blood and puke from hospital corridors. And some nights, like
tonight, she comes home balancing a pizza box from Penzoni’s on her
hip as she struggles to open our mailbox to fish out the pile of bills
inside.
My brother takes the stairs to our front door two at a time. He stops
short at Evan’s feet. His arms fall flat at his sides and some spittle stalls,
then sucks back between his lips— zzzzzip—as he eyes Evan with
kindergarten suspicion.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Evan.”
“Evan who?”
Evan laughs. “Uh, Evan Kokua.”
Evan tosses out some sort of secret handshake, bumping his fist
against Ben’s in a way that sends my l ittle brother into spasms of
laughter.
“Are you a superhero?” Ben asks.
Evan shoots my brother a grin that lights up the other wise dingy
wraparound balcony outside our front door, then leans down to look him
in the eye. “If I am, I’ll never tell.”
“Awesome!”
Ben pushes past me and through the front door. I rock backward
then forward, but manage to stay inside.
182
And then my mom shuffles up the stairs, hands the pizza box over
to me, and looks at Evan. “Half cheese, half pepperoni. I know it’s not
very original, but you’re welcome to join us, Superman.” She brushes
past him to get inside.
Evan shifts forward, ready to make the crossing into our tiny
apartment, but he stops midstride over the threshold when he looks at
me. My eyes must be bugging out of my face, because he falls back into
place on the other side of the door, feet firmly planted on our welcome
mat.
“Nah, I better not. I’ve gotta nail a bookshelf to the wall.
Earthquakes.”
He shrugs. We all shrug.
California earthquakes. We’re all waiting for them. We’re all
waiting for things to happen that might never come—t hings that, if they
do come, might not be as bad as the things that have already occurred.
“I’m Carol,” my mom says, shoving her hand past me to grip
Evan’s. They shake. He smiles.
“It’s nice to meet you, Carol. I’m Evan. My mom and I just moved
here from Hawaii. You’ll meet her, I’m sure.”
My mom throws her arms out on each side of her, accidentally
thwacking the hanging planter with the dying fern in it hard enough to
send it swaying under the porch light. “Welcome to Paradise Manor,
Evan. Ain’t it grand?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I bet you didn’t realize paradise has a view of the
dumpster and no AC.”
Evan lets out a genuine laugh that shakes something loose deep
inside of me. I like genuine laughter in the same way I like the warm
183
sun on my face, but I haven’t heard or felt either of those things in
a long time.
“Well, good night, then,” my mom says as she slips all the way
inside. “You’ll have to swing by for pizza some other time. Right,
Morgan?” It’s not a question. It’s an expectation. It’s a request to hurry
up and have a life again.
“Um, right,” I say, rolling the knotted string of my daytime pajama
pants between my fingertips. I stand at the door staring at Evan. “Sorry.
My mom’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Not really. She just tells it like it is. It’s not like we don’t know
where we are. It’s not like we don’t know we’re living the lyr ics to a
bad country song.” He fakes strumming a guitar.
Something about Evan makes me want to be brave, so I fasten a
fake guitar strap across my own shoulder and strum the strings at my
waist.
“She lives in a rundowwwwwn building on the outskirts of
towwwwwwn,” I croon in an over- the- top country twang.
“Not bad,” he says as he backs away from the door, nodding. “Not
bad at all. I’m gonna have to write some music to go along with that.
Right after I learn to play the guitar.”
The idea of us making music together is so ludicrous that it makes
me laugh.
Evan grins at me. “You have a good laugh. Like when you hand
one out, you mean it. My cousin was like that.”
The compliment throws me off- kilter, and I play it back in my head
to be sure I heard him right. “Well, your cousin must’ve been one cool
dude.”
184
He smiles halfheartedly. “Yeah. I think you would’ve liked him.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, I hope you feel better. My mom swears
by soup. Do you have any?” That makes me laugh again.
“What?”
“That was just really funny in a way you don’t even know.”
“Oh, well, then I’m glad I could make you laugh. Again.”
“Me too.”
I’m still laughing as I say good bye and shut the door behind me.
It’s a sound that echoes inside and outside of me, and it stops my mom
in her tracks when I turn to face her. She stands dead still in the center
of the kitchen and looks at me, a smile creeping across her face. It’s
quick. There and gone. And then she pulls a slice of pizza from the box
and slaps it down on my brother’s plate.
“You eating?” she asks me.
I nod and pull myself onto my stool at the kitchen counter. The
stool where my mom and Ben are to the left of me because they know
the drill.
“Evan seems nice. Did you talk for long?” my mom asks. She’s
fishing.
“Long enough.”
“I’m not sure it was long enough for him. He wanted to stay for
dinner.”
“He shoulda stayed,” Ben says. “He’s cool.”
“Yep, too cool for me, I think.” I grab a slice of pizza and turn to
my brother. “So who’d you play with at school? I want to hear all about
it.”
Ben launches into a story about recess. He tells me about how they
played Farm and all the kids w ere different animals and he got to be
the farmer.
185
“That’s the best part because then you get to pretend to feed all the
people.” He laughs, then shakes his head trying to knock his mistake
loose. “I mean, the animals.”
He keeps talking, animated and stuttering with excitement. I listen
to the sound of his voice. And even though the sides of his mouth are
covered in tomato sauce and he smells like kickball sweat and
playground dirt, I pull him into me and kiss the top of his messy head
of hair.
“I love you,” I tell him. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says through a mouthful of pizza. “I love
you, too.”
186
CHAPTER TWO
My emergency pills are in an amber prescription bottle on the second
shelf of the medicine cabinet. I look at them every morning and hope
today isn’t a day when I’ll need to take one. But knowing they are there
makes me feel better. I h aven’t needed an emergency pill for almost
two months. Since Valentine’s Day. That was a bad day because my
dad called. I refused to get on the phone even though he asked to talk to
me. That was the last time he tried. But he did talk to my mom, which
made her angry. And he talked to Ben, which made him confused. Ben
asked my dad when he was coming home, because by then it had been
over a year since Ben had seen him. Over a year since he’d returned
from his last tour, his fifth one, in Afg han i stan. Over a year since my
mom had filed for divorce and full custody. Once Ben had gone into
another room where he couldn’t hear her, my mom told my dad he’d
better not even think about showing up at Paradise Manor.
So he didn’t.
And he probably never will.
After my mom and Ben have left for work and school, I hold the amber
prescription bottle in my hand. I run my thumb over the label that tells
Morgan Grant to take one pill as needed.
Not today.
I put it back.
I shut the door.
I hear Evan leave when I’m in my room pulling on a clean pair of
pajama pants— I don’t see the point of wearing real clothes since I never
leave the house. Slap slap goes his screen door and boom boom go his
187
footsteps on the stairs outside. I pull back my curtains and watch
him go.
It’s the first week of April, but today will be Evan’s first day of
school. Everything will be new, but enough of it will be the same.
Because it’s still high school. And high school doesn’t change that
much from one place to another. Evan will go to a classroom. He will
sit in a desk that faces a whiteboard. A teacher will stand at a podium
and tell him things that are supposed to sound smart. Evan will write
them down in a notebook covered in graffiti doodles. The girls at school
will like him; I’m sure of it. The pretty girls will call dibs and drag him
off to the quad at lunchtime to watch them eat apples and sip Diet Coke.
I know this because I used to be one of those girls.
I think about these things.
I watch a soap opera.
I eat a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
I complete two online lessons.
I study Rolle’s theorem.
I e- mail an analy sis of colors in The Great Gatsby to my En glish
teacher.
I wait for Brenda.
I wait for one p.m.
***
At noon, I know Brenda is coming soon. It is because of this that I feel
zingy electricity in my veins. I know she’s coming and I have to open
the door to let her in.
I have to talk. I have to tell.
Maybe a shower will help.
188
I duck my head under the hot water and let it soak through to my
skull. My hair suctions itself to my ears, locking the noise out. I like
being underwater where it’s only me. Sounds and the world are far
away.
I’ve spent a lot of time underwater because I used to be on my high
school swim team. I swam every weekday, even in the off- season, from
three u ntil four thirty p.m., in the twenty- five- yard lanes of the Pacific
Palms High School pool. I swam with the same three friends I’d met on
youth squad when I was eleven and my dad first received orders to a
base near Pacific Palms.
My mom was newly pregnant with Ben so we’d hoped my dad’s
transfer meant he would be home for a while. But we’d barely gotten
settled when he was called up for his third tour in Afghanistan. So he
returned to combat and my mom and I committed to making the best of
Pacific Palms.
I got close to my swim team friends, and by the time we got to high
school, we’d become an inseparable foursome. Chelsea was brilliant
and beautiful in that blond SoCal way that made boys stutter when they
talked to her. Brianna swam the fifty- yard freestyle faster than any other
girl in the history of our high school. And my best friend, Sage, was
wise beyond her years, poised to perfection on Model UN and talking
about things other sixteen- year- olds didn’t even know existed.
I was a little of all of that. But a fter October fifteenth, after that
day, Pacific Palms High School shut down. My friends and I had to go
to d ifferent schools so construction workers could get busy changing
the parts of PPHS that would haunt us forever. The administration split
up students based on a set of neighborhood boundaries they’d come up
with. The four of us didn’t live close enough to go to the same place, so
we drifted as things continued to change.
189
Brianna got a boyfriend.
I started online high school.
Chelsea stopped calling.
And Sage moved away before she was even supposed to start at her
new school.
But at our old school, I imagined the bright blue championship
banners still hanging from the rungs of the metal fence that ran around
the outdoor pool deck. I didn’t know if they were still there, but I
wanted them to be. Because my name was on one of them. I held a rec
ord. I was a long- distance swimmer. I was someone who could go on
and on forever, steady and even, then finish hard to pull off the win.
Now my whole life is a race. Every minute leading to the next.
Every day feeding into another. It’s a constant crossing of the finish line.
It’s like playing a fast song slow.
Chelsea and Brianna don’t understand that. They tried. They’d
come over, but we’d only end up sitting and staring at the telev ision.
“Come with us to the party,” Brianna would beg. “There are going
to be so many cute boys.”
“So many,” Chelsea would echo.
I’d curl up tighter on the couch, tucking my slippered feet
underneath me. “I don’t care about cute boys or parties right now.
But don’t let me stop you from enjoying them.”
“It’s not the same without you,” Chelsea would whine.
Sage would call from her new house on the weekends. More often
than not, she’d sound distant and sad and in search of solutions.
“So you quit school?” she’d ask. “Is it easier?”
“A little,” I’d say.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
190
Brenda knocks her knuckles against my door at 12:57 p.m. I want those
three minutes before one p.m. to myself. But she’s here. So I breathe
deep. I breathe long. And I open the door. Brenda smiles, and I can see
the gap between her top two teeth that makes her look like a little kid.
I know how old she is because I once asked her to tell me.
“If it really matters, I’m twenty- nine,” she said. “But why do you
want to know?”
“I just wanted to see if you would tell me.”
Today, a long burgundy dreadlock falls into her face, and she tucks
it back into the other chunk of dreads she has fastened with an oversize
ponytail holder at the nape of her neck. I can see the string of tiny silver
loops that line her lobe when she does it. And the peace sign tattoo
etched into the skin behind her ear. I pull the door all the way open, and
she comes inside.
She sits. She is to the left of me because she knows. She takes out
a notebook and a pen. She has pages filled about me. I’m sure she goes
back to her office after we meet and types the notes into her computer.
She didn’t tell me that. I just know. I’d be stupid not to know. Everyone
keeps everything on computers.
She pulls the remote from my hand and shuts off the TV with a
click.
We stare. We start.
“So. How have the last couple days been for you?”
I tell her about the mundane stuff that happened yesterday and
today. Soup. Soap operas. School assignments. And then I tell her about
Evan.
“A boy? Your age?” She’s intrigued. I can tell by the way she taps
her pen against her notebook. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s tall. And summery.”
191
“Summery? What does ‘summery’ mean to you?” Her voice is
calm, like petting a cat.
And then I tell her about soft sand and crisp ocean water. Of bright
blue skies dotted with seagulls and airplanes. Of those same blue skies
turning dark and dotted with the moon and stars. I tell her of bonfire
smoke and surfboards. Of tank tops and short shorts. Of beach cruiser
bicycles and snow cones. Of string bikinis and tan lines. Of parties and
promises. Of cold beer and warm kisses.
I tell her all the things I used to be before this. It’s not the first time
I’ve told her, but she seems to be listening extra hard today. I think it
must be because I sound wistful.
“Do you miss it?” she asks me.
And that makes me cry.
She hands me a tissue, and I sit like a lump on the couch.
“Missing summer is a good thing,” she says. “It will be here before
you know it. You can be ready for it. You can enjoy it again.”
After she’s gone, I feel better for a little bit. I don’t hate thinking
about summer. But then I think too much about other stuff. I curl up into
the fetal position, knees tucked into my chest, waiting for the memories
to pass.
An hour after that, there’s a knock on my door. I’m still curled up, but
I’ve stopped crying. My nose is stuffed up with snot, and I snort it down
into my throat. My eyelids are puffy, and the throb of a headache bangs
at my temples. I want to be alone. I stay very still and hope whoever is
knocking will go away. But they don’t. Whoever it is wants me to know
they are there.
“Who is it?” I ask through the door.
“Superman.”
Even though that makes me smile, I tell Evan I’m not dressed.
192
“I can’t open the door.”
“Well, get dressed. I’ll wait.”
So I do. I don’t know why, but I do.
I scrub my face. I run a brush through my hair. I dab deodorant
under my armpits. I put on a clean bra and change my stained shirt. I do
it all in five minutes flat.
When I crack open the door, Evan’s holding some envelopes and a
white to-go cup of something. There’s a lid on top with three holes
poked through it, like the lids of jars Ben uses to collect bugs from the
planter at the entrance to Paradise Manor.
“First off, we got some of your mail,” Evan says, handing over a
credit card bill and some grocery store coupons.
“Feel free to keep them.”
He smiles. “Second, I brought you some soup. To make you feel
better.” I can smell the garlic through the lid when he holds it out to
me. “My aunt owns a restaurant. They make good soup.”
“I like soup.”
“Well, yeah. Doesn’t everybody?”
I shrug.
I watch Evan take me in. “Wow, you don’t look so good.”
“Okay, then.” His words hit me hard. I shouldn’t have opened the
door. I don’t need this cute boy from Hawaii to bring me soup and tell
me I’m not pretty. There was a time in my life when I knew I was pretty.
But I don’t feel that way right now.
“Aw, man.” He runs his hand through his hair, flustered. “Look,
I’m sorry. That came out wrong. That sounded like I think you’re ugly
or something. Which you’re not.” He looks down at our welcome mat.
“You just look sick. That’s all.”
193
Right. Sick. I push my hair back from my face with my free hand,
knotting it on top of my head without a ponytail holder.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“I just meant you seem worse today. So maybe it’s one of those
things where you have to get worse before you get better.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I pull the lid off the soup. A stream of steam hits the air between
us. The smell of garlic goes from pleasant to overwhelming.
“I didn’t want it to get cold. That’s why I needed you to open up,”
he says.
“Thanks, Superman.”
He grins like he’s relieved I’m calling him that. I notice dimples
digging into his tan cheeks. There’s a part of me that wants to nudge my
pointer fin ger into one of them because they’re so cute. “I’m not
Superman. Clark Kent, maybe. Not Superman.” “Yeah, okay.” I smile.
Evan kicks the front of his flip-fl op against the edge of our
welcome mat.
“So did you learn to play the guitar yet?” I ask.
“Nope.” He laughs. “Did you write any songs?”
“Oh, yeah. Dozens.”
“I better pick up the pace then.” He grins and those dimples show
up again. “But right now, I better go do my homework. This
trigonometry class is way ahead of where we were at my old school.”
“Trig, huh? So are you a ju nior?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Same.” I don’t tell him I’m already in calculus and that math is
one of the few subjects I haven’t let slip.
“Well, you need to get well so you can show me around town,
okay? I don’t know anybody here.”
194
I think about how fun that would’ve been a year ago. When I was
the way I was before. I would’ve taken him to Clyde’s Coffee for frozen
hot chocolate. And I would’ve shown him the strip of beach where the
locals hang out and the tourists don’t. I would’ve shown him which hill
it was fun to ride down on your bike, and I would’ve let go of my
handlebars and let my arms fly out like wings while the wind whipped
past my ears. And on a Saturday night, I would’ve taken him to a party
and leaned into him so his lips would’ve been close to my ear when he
talked. That move always worked. I would’ve shown him the alcove in
the hallway by the auditorium at school where I used to think I could
hide and nobody would find me. I would’ve shown him my world. Now,
I can’t show him anything but a tiny apartment and a girl who can’t
walk out the front door.
“I don’t get out much. But thanks for the soup. I’m sure it’ll taste
really good.”
Before he can say anything, I shut the door and leave him behind
it.
195
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marisa Reichardt is the debut author of contemporary
young-adult novel Underwater. She lives in Los Angeles,
California, and loves the beach, cake and Trojan football.
Twitter: @ youngadultish
Website: marisareichardt.com
THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER
BY HARRIET REUTER HAPGOOD
My heart is a kaleidoscope, and when we kiss it makes my world
unravel . . .
Last summer, Gottie’s life fell apart. Her beloved
grandfather Grey died and Jason, the boy to whom she lost
her virginity (and her heart), wouldn’t even hold her hand
at the funeral. This summer, still reeling from twin
heartbreaks, Gottie is lost and alone and burying herself in
equations. Until, after five years absence, Thomas comes
home: Former boy next door. Former best friend. Former
everything. And as life turns upside down again she starts
to experience strange blips in time – back to last summer,
back to what she should have seen then . . .
During one long, hazy summer, Gottie navigates grief,
world-stopping kisses and rips in the space–time
continuum as she tries to reconcile her first heartbreak with
her last.
{1}
PARTICLES
The Uncertainty Principle states that you can know where
a particle is, or you can know where it’s going,
but you can’t know both at the same time. The
same, it turns out, is true of people.
And when you try, when you look too closely, you get
the Observer Effect. By trying to work out what’s
going on, you’re interfering with destiny.
A particle can be in two places at once.
A particle can interfere with its own past.
It can have multiple futures, and multiple pasts.
The universe is complicated.
199
Saturday 3 July
[Minus three hundred and five]
My underwear is in the apple tree.
I’m lying in the grass, staring up through the branches. It’s
late afternoon and the rest of the garden is lemonade sunshine,
but under here it’s cool and dark and insecty. When I tilt my head
back, the whole garden is upside-d own – and my laundry with
it, festooned like the world’s saddest bunting.
Déjà vu flattens me, and I have the stupidest thought: Hey,
Grey’s home.
When our clothesline broke a few years ago, my grandfather
Grey was underneath it. ‘Balls and buggery to the flames of hell!’
he roared, flinging the wet clothes into the trees to dry. He loved
the effect so much, he insisted we repeat it every time the sun
came out.
But Grey died last September, and we don’t do things like
that any more.
I shut my eyes and recite pi to one hundred decimal places.
When I open them, the apple tree still blossoms with knickers.
It’s a throwback to how things used to be – which means I know
exactly who’s responsible.
Then I hear his voice saying my name, floating towards me
over the bushes.
‘Gottie? Yeah, still a total Mensa patient.’
200
Rolling on to my front, I peer through the trees. Across the
garden, my brother Ned is coming out of the back door. Six foot
of stubble and snakeskin leggings, and a clothespin clipped to
his T- shirt. Since coming home from art school a couple of
weeks ago, he’s been making a pastiche of Grey’s summers;
dragging our grandfather’s things out of the shed, rearranging
furniture, playing his reco rds. He settles himself on the grass,
swigging a beer and air- guitaring with his other hand. Perpetual
motion.
Then I see who’s following him, and instinctively duck into
the grass. Jason. His best friend, and bass player in their band. He
slouches slowly to the ground, where I stare a hole in the back of
his leather jacket.
‘It’s gone seven,’ Ned is saying. ‘Reckon Grots’ll be home
soon, if you wanna say hi.’
I wrinkle my nose at the nickname. Kla Grot – little toad. I’m
seventeen!
‘It’s that late?’ Jason’s voice is a low rumble. ‘We should call
the others, have band practice here.’
No, don’t do that, I think. Shoo. It’s been one thing, having
Ned home from art school these past couple of weeks, bringing
the house alive with music and noise and mess. I don’t want
Fingerband here too, squawking their guitars all night and
talking, talking, talking. Not when I’ve been an elective mute
since September.
Then there’s Jason. Blond, bequiffed, blue-e yed. Beautiful.
And, if you want to get technical about it, my ex- boyfriend.
Secret ex- boyfriend.
Ugh.
201
Aside from the funeral, this is the first time I’ve seen him since
the end of last summer. This is the first time I’ve seen him since
we were having sex in the sunshine.
I didn’t even know he was back. I don’t know how I missed
it – our village, Holksea, is the size of a postage stamp. Barely
enough houses for a Monopoly set.
I want to throw up. When Jason left for university, this was
not how I pictured us seeing each other again – with me lurking
in the shrubbery like Grey’s vast stone Buddha. I’m frozen,
compelled to stay where I am, staring at the back of Jason’s head.
It’s too much for my heart to take, and not enough.
Then Umlaut appears from nowhere.
A ginger blur through the garden, landing with a meow next
to Ned’s cowboy boots.
‘Yo, midget,’ says Jason, surprised. ‘You’re new.’
‘That’s Gottie’s,’ Ned non- explains. Getting a kitten wasn’t
my idea. He appeared one day in April, courtesy of Papa.
Ned stands up, scanning the garden. I try to blend, a fivefoot-n ine-inch leaf, but he’s already strutting towards me.
‘Grotbag.’ He raises one cool eyebrow. ‘Playing hide and
seek?’
‘Hello,’ I reply, rolling on my back and staring up at him. My
brother’s face is a reflection of mine – olive skin, dark eyes,
beaky nose. But while he lets his brown hair fall unbrushed
around his shoulders, mine hasn’t been cut in five years, and is
twisted up in a permanent topknot. And only one of us is wearing
eyeliner. (Clue: it isn’t me.)
‘Found yer,’ Ned winks. Then, quick as a flash, he whips his
phone from his pocket and snaps me.
202
‘Uuuhhhnnn,’ I complain, hiding my face. One thing I
haven’t missed while he’s been AWOL all year: Ned’s paparazzo
habit.
‘You should come on out,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘I’m
making frikadeller.’
The prospect of meatballs is enough to coax me out, despite
myself. I stand up and trail him through the shrubbery. Out on the
grass, Jason’s still lounging among the daisies. He’s obviously
found a new hobby at university – there’s a cigarette half-s moked
in his hand, which he lifts in a half- wave, half- smiling.
‘Grots,’ he says, not quite meeting my eye.
That’s Ned’s nickname for me, I think. You used to call me
Margot.
I want to say hello, I want to say so much more than that, but
the words vanish before they reach my mouth. The way we left
things, there’s still so much unsaid between us. My feet grow
roots while I wait for him to stand up. To talk to me. To mend
me.
In my pocket, my phone weighs heavy, untexted. He never
told me he was back.
Jason looks away, and sucks on his cigarette.
After a pause, Ned claps his hands together. ‘Well,’ he says
brightly. ‘Let’s get you two chatterboxes inside, there’s meatballs
to fry.’
He struts off to the house, Jason and I walking silently
behind. When I reach the back door, I’m about to follow them
into the kitchen, but something stops me. Like when you think
you hear your name, and your soul snags on a nail. I linger on the
doorstep, looking back at the garden. At the apple tree, with its
laundry blossoms.
203
Behind us, the eve ning light is condensing, the air thick with
mosquitoes and honeysuckle. I shiver. We’re on the cusp of
summer, but I have the sense of an ending, not a beginning.
But perhaps it’s that Grey is dead. It still feels like the moon
fell out of the sky.
204
Sunday 4 July
[Minus three hundred and six]
I’m in the kitchen early the next morning, scooping birchermuesli
into a bowl, when I notice it. Ned’s reinstated the photographs on
the fridge, a decorating habit of Grey’s I always hated. Because
you can see the gap where Mum should be.
She was nineteen when Ned was born and she moved home
to Norfolk, bringing Papa with her. Twenty- one when she had
me, and she died. The first photo I show up in after that, I’m four
and we’re at a wedding. In it, Papa, Ned, and I are clustered
together. Behind us towers Grey, all hair, beard, and pipe – a
supersize Gandalf in jeans and a Rolling Stones T- shirt. I smile
toothlessly: prison- cropped hair, shirt and tie, buckled shoes,
trousers tucked into manky socks. (Ned is in a pink rabbit
costume.)
A couple of years ago, I asked Grey why I’d been dressed as
a boy, and he’d chuckled, saying, ‘Gots, man – no one ever
dressed you any which way. That was all you. Right down to that
weird jam with the socks. Your parents want to let you and Ned
do your own thing.’ Then he’d wandered off to stir the dubious
stew he was concocting.
Despite my alleged childhood insistence on dressing like Mr
Darcy, I’m not a tomboy. They might be in a tree, but my bras
are pink. Awake all last night, I painted my toenails cherry red.
Hidden in my wardrobe – albeit underneath a hundred
doppelgänger plimsolls – lurks a pair of black high heels. And I
believe in love on a Big Bang scale.
205
That’s what Jason and I had.
Before leaving the kitchen, I flip the photo over, sticking it
down with a magnet.
Outside, it’s an En glish cottage- garden idyll. Tall
delphiniums pierce the cloudless sky. I scowl at the sunshine and
start heading to my room – a brick box annex beyond the apple
tree. Almost immediately, my foot hits something solid in the
long grass, and I go flying.
When I pick myself up and turn around, Ned is sitting up,
rubbing his face.
‘Nice dandelion impression,’ I say.
‘Nice wake-up call,’ he mumbles.
From the house, through the open back door, I hear the phone
ring. Ned cat-s tretches in the sun, unruffled. Unlike his velvet
shirt.
‘Did you just get home?’
‘Something like that,’ he smirks. ‘Jason and I headed out
after dinner– Fingerband rehearsal. There was tequila. Is Papa
around?’
As if cued by a hidden director, Papa floats from the kitchen,
a mug in each hand. In this house of big stompy giant people,
he’s a Heinzelmännchen – a pixie-p ale elf straight out of a
German fairy tale. He’d be invisible if it weren’t for his red
trainers.
He’s also about as down to earth as a balloon, not batting an
eye at how we’re scattered on the grass as he perches himself
between my upside- down cereal bowl and me. He hands Ned a
mug. ‘Juice. Here, I have to talk both of you to a proposition.’
Ned groans, but gulps the juice, emerging from the mug
slightly less green.
206
‘What’s the proposition?’ I ask. It’s always disconcerting
when Papa tunes in to reality enough to run ideas past us. He
seriously lacks Vorsprung durch Technik – German precision and
efficiency.
Not just a blanket short of a picnic: he’d forget the picnic too.
‘Ah, well,’ Papa says. ‘You both remember next door, the
Althorpes?’
Automatically, Ned and I turn to look across the garden, at
the house beyond the hedge. Almost five years ago, our
neighbours moved to Canada. They never sold the house, so there
was always the promise of a return along with the To Let sign
and its constant parade of tourists, holidaymakers, families. It’s
been empty for the past few months.
Even after all this time, I can still picture a grubby little boy
in coke- bottle glasses squeezing through the hole in the hedge,
waving a fistful of worms.
Thomas Althorpe.
Best friend doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Born in the same week, we’d grown up side by side. Thomasand- Gottie – we were inseparable, trouble times two, an el
weirdo club of only us.
Until he left.
I stare at the scar on my left palm. All I remember is a plan
to swear a blood brothers pact, a promise to talk to each other.
Three thousand miles wasn’t going to change anything. I woke
up in A&E with a ban dage on my hand and a black hole in my
memory.
By the time I came home, Thomas and his parents were gone.
207
I waited and waited, but he never wrote me a letter, or
emailed, or Morse code messaged, or anything we’d said we’d
do.
That autumn, my hand healed; my hair grew long. Little by
little, I grew up. Little by little, I forgot about the boy who forgot
me first.
‘The Althorpes?’ Papa interrupts my thoughts. ‘You
remember? They’re getting divorced.’
‘Fascinating,’ croaks Ned. And even though he abandoned
me, my heart skips a little on Thomas’s behalf.
‘Indeed. Thomas’s mum, I was on the phone with – she’s
moving home to En gland in September. Thomas is coming with
her.’
There’s a strange sense of inevitability to this announcement.
Like I’ve been waiting for Thomas to come back this whole time.
But how dare he not even tell me! To have his mum call Papa!
Chicken.
‘Anyway, she’d like that Thomas is settled back before
starting school, which I agree,’ he says, adding a harrumph, a
classic Papa telltale sign that there’s more to the story than he’s
letting on. ‘It’s a bit last- minute, her plan, but I offer that he stay
with us this summer. That’s . . . that’s my proposition.’
Unbelievable. It’s not enough that he’s coming home, but
he’ll be on my side of the hedge. Unease blooms like algae.
‘Thomas Althorpe,’ I repeat. Grey always told me saying
words out loud made them true. ‘He’s moving in with us.’
‘When?’ asks Ned.
‘Ah.’ Papa sips from his mug. ‘Tuesday.’
‘Tuesday – as in two days’ time?’ I shriek like a tea kettle, all
calm evaporating.
208
‘Bagsy not it,’ says Ned. His face has reverted to hangover
green. ‘The bunkbeds are going in your room, Grots.’
Papa harrumphs again, and launches the Gotterdammerung.
‘Actually, I offered for him to stay in Grey’s room.’
Four horse men. A shower of frogs. Burning lakes of fire. I
may not know my Revelations, but disturbing the shrine of
Grey’s bedroom? It’s the apocalypse.
Next to me, Ned quietly throws up on the grass.
209
Monday 5 July
[Minus three hundred and seven]
‘Spacetime!’ Ms Adewunmi scrawls on the whiteboard with a
marker-p en swoosh. ‘The four- dimensional mathematical space
we use to formulate – what?’
Physics is my favourite subject, but my teacher is way too
energetic for 9 a.m. For a Monday. For any day after I’ve been
awake all night, which since October is basically always.
Spacetime, I write down. Then, for some inexplicable reason –
and I instantly scribble it out – Thomas Althorpe.
‘E equals McSquared,’ mumbles Nick Choi from the other
side of the classroom.
‘Thank you, Einstein,’ says Ms Adewunmi, to laughter.
‘That’s the theory of special relativity. Spacetime – space is
three- dimensional, time is linear, but if we combine them, that
gives us a playground for all sorts of physics fun. And it was
calculated by . . . ?’
210
Hermann Minkowski, I think, but instead of raising my hand,
I use it to stifle a yawn.
‘That guy, Mike Wazowski!’ someone yells.
‘What, from Monsters, Inc.?’ asks Nick.
‘They travel between worlds, don’t they? McSquared.’ I hear
from behind me.
‘Minkowski,’ Ms Adewunmi attempts over whoops and
catcalls. ‘Let’s try to focus on reality . . .’
Good luck with that. It’s the last week of term, and the
atmosphere is as fizzy as carbon dioxide – probably why Ms
Adewunmi’s given up on the curriculum and is making her own
fun.
‘Anyone else for interstellar dimensions? How would you
describe a one- way metric?’ A wormhole, I think. A one- way
metric is a blast from the past. That’s how I’d answer. Ned
bringing back Grey by repatriating his Buddhas, leaving crystals
in the bathroom sink, cooking with way too much chili. Jason,
smiling at me in the garden after almost a year.
Thomas Althorpe.
But I’ve never spoken up during any of Ms Adewunmi’s
lessons. It’s not that I don’t know the answers. And back at the
village school in Holksea, I never minded saying so and having
everyone stare at the maths- genius- prodigy- freak- show- nerd.
We’d all known each other since forever. But like a lot of the
villages along the coast, Holksea’s too small to support a real
high school. At sixteen, everyone transfers to the giant school in
town. Here, classes are twice the size and full of strangers. But
mostly, it’s that ever since the day Grey died, talking exposes me.
211
As though I’m the opposite of invisible, but everyone can see
right through me.
When Ms Adewunmi’s gaze lands on me, her eyebrows go
shooting off into her afro. She knows I know the answer, but I
keep my mouth clammed shut till she turns back to the
whiteboard.
‘All right, then,’ she says. ‘I know you guys have fractals
next period, so let’s keep moving.’
Fractals, I write down. The infinite, self- replicating patterns
in nature. The big picture, the whole story, is just thousands of
tiny stories, like a kaleidoscope.
Thomas was a kaleidoscope. He turned the world to colours.
I could tell you a hundred stories about Thomas, and it still
wouldn’t be the big picture: he bit a teacher on the leg. The vicar
gave him a lifetime ban from the Holksea summer fete. He put a
jellyfish in Megumi Yamazaki’s lunch box when she said I had a
dead mum, and he could thread liquorice shoelaces through his
nose.
But it was more than that. According to Grey, we were wolf
cubs raised in the same patch of dirt. Thomas didn’t belong on
his side of the hedge, where the lawn was neatly clipped and his
scary dad’s rules were practically laminated. And I didn’t quite
belong on mine, where we were allowed to roam free. It wasn’t
212
about like, or love – we were just always together. We shared a
brain. And now he’s coming back . . .
I feel the same way as when you flip a rock over in the
garden, and see all the bugs squirming underneath.
The bell rings, too early. I think it’s a fire drill, till I see
everyone around me holding worksheets in the air. The
whiteboard is covered in notations, none of them about fractals.
The clock suddenly says midday. And, one by one, Ms
Adewunmi is plucking paper from hands, adding them to her
growing pile.
Panicked, I look in front of me. There’s a worksheet there,
but I haven’t written on it. I don’t even remember being given it.
Next to me, Jake Halpern hands in his worksheet and
slouches away, his bag knocking against me as he slides off the
stool. Ms Adewunmi snaps her fingers.
‘I . . .’ I stare at her, then back at my blank paper. ‘I ran out
of time,’ I say, lamely.
‘All right then,’ she says, with a small frown. ‘Detention.’
*
I’ve never had detention before. When I check in after my final
lesson, a teacher I don’t recognize stamps my slip, then waves a
bored hand. ‘Find a seat and read. Do some homework,’ he says,
turning back to his grading.
I make my way through the hot, half- empty room to a seat
by the window. Inside my ring binder is the UCAS packet I got
in tutor group this morning. I shove it to the bottom of my
rucksack, to be dealt with never, and pull out Ms Adewunmi’s
worksheet instead. For lack of anything better to do, I start
writing.
213
THE GREAT SPACETIME QUIZ!
Name three key features of special relativity.
(1) The speed of light NEVER changes. (2) Nothing can
travel faster than light. Which means (3) depending on
the observer, time runs at different speeds. Clocks are a
way of meas ur ing time as it exists on Earth. If the
world turned faster, we’d need a new type of minute.
What is general relativity?
It explains gravity in the context of time and space. An
object – Newton’s apple tree, perhaps – forces spacetime to
curve around it because of gravity. It’s why we get black
holes.
Describe the Gödel metric.
It’s a solution to the E = MC2 equation that ‘proves’ the
past still exists. Because if spacetime is curved, you
could cross it to get there.
214
What is a key characteristic of a Möbius strip?
It’s infinite. To make one, you half twist a length of
paper and Sellotape the ends together. An ant could
walk along the entire surface, without ever crossing the
edge.
What is an Event Horizon?
A spacetime boundary – the point of no return. If you
observe a black hole, you can’t see inside. Beyond the
Event Horizon, you can see the universe’s secrets – but
you can’t get out of the hole.
Bonus point: write the equation for the Weltschmerzian
Exception.
?!
215
Even after I stare at the final question for several centuries before
giving up, it’s still only 4:16 p.m. Forty-four minutes till I can
escape.
Resisting the urge to nap, I start doodling: the Milky Way,
constellations of question marks. Geometry jokes, spaceships,
Jason’s name written then scribbled out, over and over and over.
Then Thomas’s, same thing.
When I look down at the worksheet again, it’s a total mess.
4:21 p.m. I yawn and open my notepad, planning to copy my
answers on to a clean page.
E = MC2, I begin.
And the second I write the 2, the whole equation starts to
shimmer.
Um . . . I yawn and blink, but there it is: my handwriting is
definitely shimmering. All it needs is a pair of platforms and a
disco ball.
I flip the notepad shut. It’s a standard college ruled pad. Heart
fluttering, I fumble a couple of times opening it back to the right
page. Those ruled lines are now rippling like sound waves across
the paper.
Once, I read that lack of sleep can make you hallucinate if
you stay awake long enough. But I thought it meant migraine
aura- type black spots in front of your eyes, not cartoon-animated
notepads. As if to prove me wrong, the equation begins to spin.
Distantly, I’m aware I should probably be panicking. But it’s like
trying to wake up from a dream – you give yourself the
instruction, and nothing happens.
216
Instead, I yawn and look away, out of the window, and begin
counting backwards from a thousand in prime numbers: 997, 991
. . . M y curiosity gets the better of me around ninety- seven, and
I glance back at the notepad. It’s not moving. There’s my biro
scrawl on lined paper, nothing more.
All right, then, as Ms Adewunmi would say. It’s the summer
flu, or the temperature in here, or the being-a wake- sinceyesterday. I shake my shoulders back, pick up my pen.
I’m writing Jason’s name again when the notepad disappears.
Seriously.
My pen is hovering in the air where the page should be and
suddenly now isn’t. It’s so ludicrous, I can’t help it: I laugh.
‘It’s not giggle time, Miss Oppenheimer,’ warns the teacher.
Ms, I correct in my head. And then, ‘giggle time’? What, are
we, seven? I’ve had sex! I’ve made irreversible decisions, awful
ones, huge ones. I’m old enough to DRIVE.
He frowns at me – I’m grinning like a loon, so I pretend to
write on an invisible notepad until, satisfied, he turns away.
I look back at the absence-of-notepad, and swallow another
cackle. Because I’m wrong: it’s not invisible. If it were, I’d be
able to see the desk underneath. But instead, there’s a rectangle
of nothing. An absence. It looks sort of like the black and white
fuzz when the TV won’t tune in, or how I imagine the
indescribable gloop beyond the boundaries of the universe, the
stuff the Big Bang is expanding into.
Am I going bananas?
I bend down, peering underneath the desk. Lumps of gum, a
Fingerband sticker, and graffiti on solid wood.
But when I sit upright again, there’s still that rectangle of
television fuzz.
217
It’s not growing, or changing, or moving. I slump in my seat,
and stare at it, hypnotized. Drifting back to five years ago. When
there was a boy.
An attic.
And a first kiss that wasn’t.
‘Bawk, bawk, bawk,’ Thomas says from the other side of the attic.
‘Chicken. Bet there’s not even arteries in your hands.’
‘Mmmm.’ I don’t look up from the anatomy encyclopedia. Like
everything else in Grey’s bookshop, it’s second-hand, and there’s
biro graffiti on the pictures. ‘Let me check.’
He’s wrong, you do have arteries in your hands, but I’m
planning to do the blood pact anyway. I just want to look at this
book first. The pages with boy parts especially. I turn it on its
side, tilt my head.
How does that even . . . ?
‘G, what are you doing?’ Thomas peers over my shoulder.
I slam the book shut.
‘Nothing! You’re right. No arteries,’ I lie, my face bright red.
‘Let’s do it.’
‘Gimme your hand,’ he says, waving the knife. ‘Oops.’
The knife flies through the air. When Thomas turns to get it,
he topples over a stack of books.
‘What are you kids doing up there?’ Grey bellows from the
floor below.
I yell down the stairs, ‘Nothing. Thomas is just reshelving. We
thought we’d use this wacky new system called the al- pha-bet.’
There’s a muffled curse and a giant rumble of laughter. I turn
back to Thomas, who’s retrieved the knife and is carving our
218
initials into a bookcase. He won’t be here tomorrow. We’ll never
see each other again. On what stupid planet is that even possible?
And it means there’s about four hours left to do something I’ve
been thinking about for weeks.
‘Thomas. No one is ever going to kiss you,’ I announce. He
looks up, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. ‘And, no one’s
ever going to kiss me either.’
‘OK,’ he says, and takes a huge inhaler puff. ‘We should
probably do that then.’
We stand up, which is a problem. I grew ninety- three feet this
summer. The eaves are low and I hunch, but I’m still six inches
taller than him. Thomas clambers on a stack of books, then we’re
the right mouth height. He leans forward, and I suck peanut
butter off my braces. Here we go . . .
‘Ow!’
His head hits my chin. The books slide out from underneath
him. Our hands flail in the air, grabbing at each other, and we
smash into the bookshelves. We’re still untangling ourselves
when Grey comes bellowing in, chasing us downstairs to the front
door, hands flapping like big hairy butterflies.
‘It’s raining,’ I pretend to whine. It’s the seaside, I don’t mind
getting wet, but I want to hear what he’ll say –
‘You’re a twelve- year- old girl, not the Wicked Witch of the
West,’ Grey booms, slamming the door behind us as I giggle.
Outside, Thomas and I teeter on the porch, the air soggy. He
looks at me, his glasses smeared, his hair curly with humidity.
His hand forms a fist. Little finger pointed straight out at me.
A salute, a signal, a promise.
219
‘Your house?’ he asks. I don’t know whether he means for a
kiss of the blood pact. Or both.
‘I don’t know how to be, without you,’ I say.
‘Me either,’ he says.
I lift up my hand, and curl my finger into his. Then we jump
off the step. Into the rain.
A paint-stained finger taps on the fuzz in front of me, and
instantly, it’s a notepad again. I blink, looking around me, dazed.
‘What are you doing?’ Sof is standing in front of the desk.
Silhouetted against the windows, she’s just an outline – pointy
hair, triangle dress, stalk legs, light blazing all around her. An
avenging angel, come to rescue me from detention!
I’m confused, sleepy. Sof and I have barely been on corridor
nodding terms all year, yet here she is, throwing her portfolio on
the ground and her body into the chair next to mine.
After blinking the sun out of my eyes, I blink again when I
see her curly hair done up in a Mr Whippy cone, red lipstick,
rhinestone glasses. Sometime between now and whenever I
stopped noticing, my erstwhile best friend has remade herself into
a fifties musical.
‘Uh, hi,’ I whisper, unsure whether we’re allowed to talk. Not
because it’s detention, but because our talking has dwindled
lately. We nod and smile in the college canteen or the library, but
we don’t hang out the way we did at our old school.
She leans over to peer at my notepad.
‘Huh,’ she says, tapping my doodles, where I’ve scribbled
out both Jason’s and Thomas’s names so they’re illegible. I
suppose this explains my dream. ‘Is this your artistic comeback?’
220
It’s a pointed remark. At GCSE, Sof opted for art, geography,
German. I went with her choices to save making my own; which
sums up our entire friendship. I never told her I had different
plans, once we started sixth form – it was easier to wait for her to
notice I wasn’t at the next easel.
‘Physics quiz,’ I explain.
‘Whatcha do to get thrown in the gulag?’ she croaks. For a
white-witch-tiger-balm-super- hippie, she sounds like she gargles
cigarettes for breakfast.
‘Daydreaming.’ I fiddle with my biro. ‘What about you?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘It’s time to spring you.’
When I look up at the clock, she’s right. The teacher’s gone.
The room’s empty. Detention ended an hour ago. Huh. It doesn’t
feel like I’ve slept for that long.
‘They lock the bike sheds at five.’ She stands up, fiddling
with the strap on her portfolio. ‘Do you want to catch the bus with
me?’
‘OK . . .’ I say, only half paying attention. I stare at the notepad:
it’s only biro and paper, but I shove it right to the bottom my
rucksack like it’s to blame for what just happened.
Was I really asleep? Is that where the last hour went? I think
back to Saturday, a whole afternoon lost before I found myself
under the apple tree.
Perhaps I am insane. I take that thought, and shove it as far
down as it will go too.
Sof’s waiting for me at the door. The silence that rides
between us all the way home is so heavy, it deserves its own bus
ticket.
221
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harriet Reuter Hapgood is a freelance journalist who has
worked with Marie Claire, ELLE, and InStyle in the UK. The
Square Root of Summer was inspired by her German
mathematician grandfather and her lifelong obsession with
YA romance, which includes a thesis on Dawson’s Creek,
part of her dissertation on romantic comedies at Newcastle
University.
Twitter: @HapGoodness
Instagram: hapgo0dness
Website: harrietreuterhapgood.com
REMADE
BY ALEX SCARROW
Leon and his younger sister, Grace, have recently moved
to London from New York and are struggling to settle into
their new life when news of an unidentified plague in Africa
begins to make headlines.
Within a week the virus hits London. They witness
people in the streets turning to liquid before their eyes, and
they run for their lives. A month after touching earth’s
atmosphere the virus has assimilated the world’s biomass.
But Leon and Grace are amongst a small minority of
people who are immune for a reason . . . a reason they need
to figure out before it’s too late.
CHAPTER 1
The girl was only ten. Her name was Camille. She was on her way
to collect water from the drinking well, a large, battered and
dented tin jug dangling from each hand, when she spotted it just
a few yards off from the hard dirt track.
A dead dog.
Not an uncommon sight. Except for the fact that it was only half
a dead dog. Camille stepped from the track onto the rough
ground, mindful of the clumps of dry claylike earth. There were
still plenty of old rusting land mines half buried in the dry orange
dirt to be wary of… a regular reminder of the days of the civil
war.
As she approached the dog, she could see that it was actually
still alive. A head, chest, front paws, the whole front half of a
body, that then sloped away to a messy shredded end of bones
tendons and spilled out organs. The tan-coloured dog was
whimpering, its front paws clawing at the dirt as if it was trying
to pull itself along the ground. Its eyes rolled up at her as she
stood over it. Its pink tongue lolled out as it panted.
Camille squatted down beside the dying animal. ‘You poor, poor
thing,’ she said softly. The dog must have triggered one of those
old mines; blown its hindquarters clean away.
She squatted down and stroked its muzzle. The animal licked
her hand pitifully grateful for the company.
‘You sleep little lady.’ For some reason she was certain
the dog was a bitch. ‘You sleep now.’
Female. In this troubled country it was always the women and
girls who did the suffering. The men did what they did, and
225
everyone else suffered. She caressed the animal’s muzzle, it
licked her fingers, leaving a slick of saliva stained pink with
blood.
The dog quivered and blew froth from its nostrils, then, with a
final whimper, it died.
Camille stood up and looked around. The rough ground was
hard and sunbaked.
There was no gouge of dark, freshly exposed earth nearby that
would indicate a recent explosion. Perhaps the animal had
managed to crawl some way after being blown up?
It seemed unlikely. And it had happened recently. She would
have heard the bang...surely?
Not that it mattered now. The dog was dead. Her suffering was
over. At least she’d been there to comfort her in the last
moments of life. She wiped her damp fingers down her yellow
shirt, leaving faint pink smudges on the material.
She winced. The fine cotton felt oddly coarse against her
sensitive fingertips.
Which was silly, because she had skin that was thick from hard
work, callouses on her fingers from carrying those water jugs
everyday. She looked down at her hand...
...and saw that the dark pigment of her skin had vanished from
the tips of her fingers, exposing raw pink flesh that glistened
wetly....like the tender, not-quite-ready skin beneath a freshly
burst blister.
Camille was dead an hour later.
226
CHAPTER 2
Leon suspected this was something quite different. It was the
speed with which it all happened, the speed with which it had
gone from being some curious little comment he’d heard tagged
onto the end of the morning news on the radio, to being the
main item on the TV news, to being the end of the world. Three
quickly-taken steps all occurring within the span of a week.
His ears had pricked over breakfast, catching those few words
on BBC Radio 4, the very last item as he raced to finish his
breakfast.
‘…in Nigeria. There’s very little information as yet coming from
the region, but we do know some sort of containment
procedure is already being put in place…’
He tuned his mum out, and his younger sister, both of whom
talking, neither one listening to the other. Leon struggled to
hear the radio beneath the shrill babble of their voices; he was
sure he’d heard the word plague in there somewhere.
‘…no confirmation that this is another outbreak of
ebola, in fact, we’ve heard that’s already been ruled out…’
And then the newsreader was off talking about the tedious
world of sport; which new athlete was being outed for taking
performance enhancing drugs, which football team was in
danger of being dropped from the Premier Division
Just blah-blah-blah stuff. The usual stuff that filled the 8.30 to
8.40 morning slot. Which was his handy daily cue to finish his
bowl of Wheetos and get going.
He pushed the bowl of chocolate milk away and stood up. Done.
227
Bus to catch for college. Another day to endure. Just like the
last, just like the next.
‘Leon?’
He looked up at mum. ‘Huh?’
‘I said…don’t forget to bring your sports bag home. Your kit’s
probably growing mildew all over it by now.’
‘Uh-yeah-right,’ he mumbled. He grabbed his rucksack from the
back of the chair and headed for the hallway.
‘Bowl?’ Grace looked up from her phone. She was busy feeding
her
virtual
pony
on
the
screen.
Swipe-dropmunchneigh....points! Like it actually really mattered.
He sighed at his bossy younger sister. Twelve, and she nagged
him like she was his mother; a mini version, but every bit as nagsome. He sighed again and doubled back, picking it up.
‘And Leo...you really shouldn’t waste the milk.’
He drooped his eyelids at her, his version, of shove-it, poured
the milk down the plughole and dropped the bowl into the sink.
Half an act of rebellion against his younger sister.
‘Good boy,’ said Mum distractedly as she fiddled with the
buttons of her office blouse with one hand and held her phone
to her ear with the other. He squeezed past her, round the
kitchen table for the hall.
‘Leon?’ she called after him.
He stopped and turned.
She smiled guiltily at him, the phone still pressed to her ear.
‘It’ll be alright you know? We’ll all settle in soon enough.’ He
suspected she was on hold, listening to crackly elevator music.
Dead time. Son time.
228
‘I know it’s been hard Leo, but....’
He knew she felt bad about the way things had been; guilty
about everything that had happened recently. Sorry that she
hardly had time for either of them.
‘Yeah, well…’ was all Leon could offer in reply. He shrugged, He
couldn’t even manage to find some sort of half-assed smile to
give back to her.
‘You’ve got friends already now, haven’t you?’ she continued,
half stating, half-asking.
He nodded. ‘Sure.’ It was far easier to lie than tell the truth. The
last thing he needed right now was Mum telling him how he
needed to engage...get out there and mix with the other kids.
‘How’s your head?’
Leon shrugged. He tapped his temples. ‘Fine.’
‘You got some aspirin? Just in case?’
‘Yup.’
‘You going for the bus?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Don’t forget to pick your sister up on the way back.’
‘I won’t.’
Grace had fractured her forearm playing netball. She now had
it in a cast and a sling and Mum wanted him to help her home.
Her arm ached, his head throbbed, he suspected Mum was on
prozac...between the three of them they were getting through
drugs like junkies in a crack house.
Mum looked at him pitifully….and for a moment he glimpsed
her old self. Mum...before she changed her name back to
Jennifer Button, almost forensically removing all trace of his dad.
Mum from way back when she’d had time for him.
229
‘Leon...honey, it’s going to work out-’ Her call suddenly
connected. ‘Oh, yes, appointments please.’
He turned and headed into the hallway, grabbing his jacket
off the peg by the front door and let himself out. If he’d known
how this particular week was going to go, how the next few
months were going to be…if he’d known that she didn’t have
that much more life left to live he would have told her he loved
her, that all the crap they’d been though over the last year was
okay...
I forgive you, Mum.
But he wasn’t to know any of that. Today was only Monday. Just
like any other Monday. Another, stuff-just-rolls-along day,
marked by nothing different, except one word he’d just about
managed to hear in the background the radio.
Plague.
230
CHAPTER 3
Leon hated this place already. Seven weeks at Randall Sixth
Form College, and he’d spoken to no more than a dozen of the
other students. Coming in mid-year…he might as well have
arrived smeared with human excrement; every little clique,
every little gang was already well and truly established and they
all held him at arm’s length.
No one seemed willing to admit the lanky new kid with the
funny New Jersey accent into their little circle.
Mostly they left him alone. There were a few assholes who
picked on him. Nothing particularly inventive; there was ‘Hank
The Yank’...and a few other no-brainers like that. There was a
little dose of it everyday, just five minutes of it usually, then they
got bored and moved on.
When Mum had first dropped the bomb on him and Grace...
that she and Dad were splitting up and she was taking them both
back home to live near her parents in England...he’d been
shocked. Tears. Panic. The foundation of his world just whipped
out from beneath his feet.
But also, there’d been a hint of relief. Relief from the rows;
those barked exchanges in the hallway of their New York
apartment. The lowered voices behind the closed bedroom
door. Murmurs from both of them that ended with a screw you
and the click of a light going off.
Mum had put a desperately positive spin on things. That
England, London...was a ‘totally sick’ place to live. (Oh, Jesus...
Mum, puh-lease, don’t even try that talk). She’d told him and
Grace that the other kids were going to love their ‘exotic movie
231
accents’, that even though they both had British passports, all
the other London kids would be fascinated by their interesting,
new, stand-out-of-the-crowd American buddies.
She completely missed the point. No kid wants to stand out.
Just like no soldier wants to stick his head up out of the foxhole.
Not if he doesn’t want it smeared over the guy standing next to
him. And that ‘kewl’ American accent had drawn fire for Leon all
right. By the end of Day One he was Hank the Yank. By the end
of Week One it had mutated into Hanker the Wanker.
Hey, because, y’know, it rhymed.
Genius.
He wasn’t a Yank, he’d explained far too many times. He was
British. British born, British mother. It’s just that he’d happened
to have spent the first sixteen years of his life in the States. Not
exactly a crime.
There was another outcast in the class, someone else that Leon
took it in turns with to be target-of-the-day. Samir. He’d
shortened it to Sam because he thought it sounded cooler. He
wondered over to Leon in the hallway at the mid-morning
period three break, as Leon was sorting through the rancid
tangle of damp clothes in his sports bag. Mum was right, it
smelled like something was thriving in there.
‘Sup, Leon.’
‘Hey,’ he replied looking up at Sam. Sam came from Pakistan;
well, his parents had anyway.
‘My dad just texted me.’
‘Yeah?’
‘He said….’ Sam pulled out his phone and swiped it.
232
‘He said...Did I see the news.’
‘Seen the news? Why? What’s up?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Sam, ‘something must’ve
happened I suppose. A bomb maybe?’
A bomb? If there’d been anything like that tube bomb scare at
Shepherds Bush a few months back he suspected the college’s
PA system would have announced it.
‘I’m going to the library. Want to come?’
The college library was more like an internet cafe than a book
repository. One side had a row of computers, the other, racks of
well thumbed magazines and untouched newspapers. Oh, and a
small rotating spindle of paperbacks in the middle that the
librarian optimistically refreshed daily with ‘The Latest Teen
Must-reads!’
Sam led the way in. Some heads turned their way from the
various clusters of students in the room, tucked closely together
and conspiring God-knows-what between them. He hated
entering rooms. Heads always swivelled. He much preferred
leaving them.
Leon hid behind Sam Chutani, who seemed to be one hundred
percent bullet proof. He spoke in that Asian sing-song way that
always seemed to provoke a piss-poor corner-shop imitation. He
wore milk-bottle glasses that made his eyes always seem to look
round and startled, like Milhouse. He sported a stubborn side
parting that fought against the crown, the natural lay of his hair
and produced a flouncy hair hummock that never seemed to
settle. He wore brown loafers, brown corduroys, a corn-flower
blue shirt that seemed to be missing a plastic name tag and a
233
smart, dark blue tie...always. Like he had matching Monday-toFriday hangers at home in his bedroom.
Leon envied Sam. He simply Did. Not. Give. A. Shit.
Sam sat down at one of the computers and logged on to his
student account. ‘My dad watches the Reuters news feed all day
long at work. He’s always the first to know if anything has
happened, anywhere.’
As the Reuters website opened, Leon expected some large
apocalyptic headline to grab their attention. No bombs, today
apparently. No crashed planes. No tourist shootings, or
shopping mall massacres. Today, for once, there seemed to be
an outbreak of sanity.
Sam pointed out a headline in the tech-business column.
‘That’s what it is.’
ForTel buys out silicon rival in Indonesia.
‘Oh…right,’ said Leon. Earth shattering.
Sam’s dad ran a small high street PC business, building to order
– the price of silicon chips was everything to him. He knew Sam
was building his own PC, a ‘Monster-Ninja-kickAss Rig’ ready for
the ‘final’ CALL OF DUTY due to be released just before
Thanksgiving.
Final? Bullshit. Leon suspected he’d die an old man before
that gravy train stopped running.
Then he spotted another news item at the bottom of the
page.
Quarantine…and some place name he’d never heard of.
Sam hit a link and in a flash the page changed to the ForTel
homepage.
234
‘Wait!’ said Leon, ‘can you go back?’
‘Sure.’ Sam sighed and went back to the Reuters page. Leon
looked for the small headline, but it wasn’t there any more; the
page layout was different; a new page of news stories.
‘Crap, it’s gone.’
‘What are you looking for?’
Leon shook his head. ‘Never mind. It was something to do with
a…I don’t know, just…’
Sam patted Leon on the back. ‘You okay, man?’
235
CHAPTER 4
Commander Benito Arnoni stood at the prow of the Levriero
with a line ready to throw. The pilot cut the engines of the
Guardia di Finanza motorboat as it closed the last twenty yards
of choppy water.
The boat before them was one of the usual re-purposed
fishing vessels used by migrant traffickers, stripped of fishing
lines and apparatus to make maximum use of the deck space.
The vessel had first been spotted an hour ago and Arnoni’s
patrol boat had been hastily despatched to intercept it. Even as
a dot on the horizon, it hadn’t looked quite right. Closer to it
now, it looked decidedly wrong. No waving arms, no rows of
malnourished faces, no painfully thin and terrified stick figures
braced against each other to keep their balance as the boat
bobbed and rocked on the water.
It looked utterly deserted. Arnoni had no one to toss a line
too.
Their motorboat slowly approached the deserted vessel and
Arnoni, standing at the prow, stretched and craned his neck to
get a better look across its empty deck. No bodies to be seen,
but the boat looked oddly decorated. Ribbons of bright pink like streamers from Christmas party poppers were draped like
webbing across the rusty paint-flecked deck. Some of those
streamers were wound up the side of the wheelhouse, up the
support stanchions to a radio aerial where a large pink streamer
flared out and fluttered like a pennant. For a moment, Arnoni
wondered if this boat was someone’s idea of a joke. A publicity
236
stunt. Perhaps some conceptual artist’s idea of meaningful ‘art’.
Crimson and sepia paint seemed to have been spattered
everywhere as if the artist wasn’t quite satisfied that his ribbons
were enough of a creative statement.
As the prow of their launch bumped against the front of the
boat, Arnoni threw a leg over the safety rail and hopped across
onto its foredeck.
The first thing that hit him was the stench. A sickeningly
sweet, yet cheesy smell, that reminded him of hanging joints of
salted ham.
And no...they certainly weren’t party streamers or
decorative ribbons. He hunkered down and inspected the pink
webbing more closely. It glistened wetly.
‘Merda.’
The boat looked like an abattoir. As if the contents of some
slaughter house had been dumped onto the boat from high
above. Now he knew what he was smelling it hit him; the putrid,
sickly sweet odour of rotting flesh. He covered his nose and
mouth as he made his way down the side of the boat, shuffling
along the narrow foot space, past the wheelhouse towards the
open cockpit and the aft deck. A low green canvas awning,
spread over the bow of the vessel rustled and snapped in the
breeze. He took a deep breath through his mouth...steadying his
nerves, his stomach. Knowing, sensing, that there was more to
see beneath it.
He ducked down under the awning.
‘Gesu’ Cristo!’ He crossed himself. His very first thought was
that he was staring at the bloody handiwork of the devil himself.
237
Some barbaric, playful, diorama ingeniously constructed from
the parts of human.
Commander Benito Arnoni threw up....and just over an hour
later, he was dead too.
238
CHAPTER 5
College finished for Leon at two o’ clock. There was a Key
Skills class he was meant to attend, taking him to three pm, but
he decided to skip it. He went to his locker and retrieved the
sports bag. The clothes inside were all convincingly damp and
muddy. He’d take them home tonight and give them to Mum to
throw into the washing machine. And she’d dutifully ask him
how the football game after college went. He’d tell her it went
well, that, sure, he was making friends. That the guys were, like,
all totally cool. She’d smile as she stuffed his kit in the washing
machine and then get back to thinking about work, about
herself, thinking about how much their father had royally
screwed up all their lives so completely.
Leon’s conceit had worked twice so far. He took his tracksuit
and trainers to college, dragged them through a muddy puddle,
let them sit damp for a few days then brought them home and
told Mum he’d had fun kicking a ball around with the other lads.
Now he made his way through Hammersmith towards
Grace’s school; a secondary that looked like a high security
prison from the outside; its small playground fenced high and
topped off with wire. Mum insisted he met Grace right at the
school gates, so she didn’t have to walk home on her own. There
had been a girl at another school nearby who’d been assaulted
by a gang. That had happened a few weeks after they’d arrived
from the States and settled into their flat.
Maybe when she was a little bit older Grace could make her
own way home, but not yet and not with her broken arm.
239
Her school finished at half past three. Leon had some
time to dawdle through King’s Mall. He hung out at here on
Wednesdays and Fridays (when he was supposedly playing
football). It was warm and dry and he could usually make his
hot chocolate in Starbucks last an hour and a half as he stared
at the passers-by. He walked past a shop window flickering
with the same image across a dozen widescreen plasma TVs; a
newsreader, and behind him, over his shoulder, what looked
like someone’s cell phone video; pixellated and blurred. Leon
could make out what looked like discarded piles of clothes left
in the middle of some dusty street. He quickly realised they
were bodies, dozens of them, scattered about almost
randomly. The video lasted only a few seconds, ended, and
then looped around again. Across the bottom of the various TV
screens a headline scrolled.
Unidentified viral outbreak in Nigeria.
He wondered if this had something to do with the soundbite
that had caught his attention this morning over breakfast. He
looked around, expecting to see others beginning to gather to
stare at the screens, but the concourse was busy with people
who had far less time on their hands than him, certainly not
enough to hang around watching TV through a shop window.
He watched for another couple of minutes, until a commercial
break came on. And then he realised he’d better get a move on
to pick up Grace.
‘I’m worried about you, Leo.’
‘I’m fine, Grace,’ he replied.
240
‘No. You’re not. You don’t have any friends. You spend too
much time on your own.’
‘Jesus. What are you, my mother?’
Grace shrugged as she walked beside him, small and slight
and half her brother’s height. He took her pink school bag and
slung it over his shoulder while she adjusted her sling.
‘You can be real immature sometimes, Leo. Somebody’s got
to look after you.’
Grace was coping far better than him with the sudden move
to London. She’d already been invited to several birthday
parties, and from the snatches of chitter chatter he’d listened to
while she was on her phone, she sounded like she was already
well on the way up her school’s social food chain.
It seemed the whole exotic accent-thing was working in her
favour, and of course she played on it, hamming it up so much
so that she sounded like some precocious Beverly Hills princess.
Even before the move, back in New Jersey, she had been
popular. Queen of the playground, a member of every after
school club going.
She placed a hand on his arm and looked up at him ‘You’re
missing Dad, aren’t you?’
‘Dunno, a bit...maybe.’
‘Don’t! He was a complete jerk, cheating on Mom like that!’
Leon wasn’t so sure it was that one-sided. Yeah, he’d had a thing
with someone at work. But Mum wasn’t entirely blameless. She
pecked at him all the time, always seemed to have something to
moan about, to blame him for, whether it was slippers in the
hall, bristles in the sink, over salting the evening meal she’d
slaved over or staying late at work far too often. He’d overheard
241
him call her a ‘bitter little shrew’ once and wondered why the
hell they bothered putting up with each other.
‘It takes two to screw up like they did.’
‘Men!’ Grace tutted. ‘You’re all the same. A cold beer, some
football and a flash of legs and boobies at half time...and you’re
all happy, aren’t you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Seriously, I’m guessing having a boyfriend is like keeping a
pony. Feed it, groom it, take it for a walk every now and then...
that’s all there is to it. Except...’ she shrugged, ‘ponies are loyal.
And grateful.’
‘And ponies don’t pay the bills.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You sexy pig!’
Leon laughed. ‘You mean sexist pig?’
‘Yuh,’ she said quickly. ‘That.’
Leon smiled. Most of the time Grace tried to sound like a
little grown-up. But most of the time she sounded like one of
those precocious child actors who talked about inner dialogue
and character motivation. But every now and then she slipped
up and sounded her age.
Leon shook his head. ‘Jesus, Grace, why can’t you just be like
every other girl your age and just play with, I dunno…dolls or
something?’
She sighed wearily. ‘Play is for children.’
They walked on in silence for a while, weaving their way
along the increasingly busy pavement, filling up with early
commuters and the tail end of kids coming home from school.
‘Anyway, it’s you we’re talking about.’
242
‘Yes, ‘Mum’.’
She tossed her curly dark hair and jutted her chin out.
‘You’ve got to make much more of an effort Leon. Mom’s
stressed out enough as it is.’ Mom. Grace was hanging onto her
accent like it was a gift, whereas Leon had been doing his best
to bury it. ‘She doesn’t need to have to be worrying about you
being some weirdo loner as well.’
‘I’ve got friends, okay?’
‘So, how come they never ring, or come round?’
Jeeez. Gimme a break.
‘Because I value my personal space. That’s not a frikkin’
crime is it?’
Grace looked up at him smiling with pity. ‘Just try a bit
harder, okay?’
Pity? From a frikkin’ twelve year old!?
‘I’m fine Grace, can we just leave my social life out of it?’
They walked past a convenience store, and she stopped
suddenly. ‘Oh-My-God!’
‘What?’
‘I need to buy a paper! They’re doing coupons for free
Maybeline samplers all this week,’ she headed for the open
door, ‘I miss a coupon, I lose out. Wait here.’
Leon nodded obediently, watching his sister stride inside; so
small for her age with drainpipe arms and legs and knobbly
knees, her long dark hair held tidily back from her face by an
Alice band...and so annoyingly precocious. Even as a baby she’d
been protective of Leon, patting him affectionately on the nose
as she sucked on a bottle of milk.
243
Among the halal meat hanging in the shop window, he saw
handwritten ads taped to the glass. Beneath the awning, the
afternoon edition of The Standard sat on a rain-damp rack, a tall
headline spread across the entire front page.
MYSTERY VIRUS IN WEST AFRICA.
He took a couple of steps closer to the window to read the story
beneath.
...as yet unidentified virus has turned up today in several
other isolated villages in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana. The
World Health Organization has already despatched a scramble
team to the three locations where symptoms have been
reported. There are reports that personnel from the United
States military’s medical research division, USAMRIID, have also
been sent. So far neither organisation has commented on the
nature of the virus, although some eye witness accounts from
within the affected villages have talked of extensive
haemorrhaging and ‘external bleeding’, symptoms similar to
those of ebola.
Grace came out of the shop, leafing through the paper in
search of her coupon page.
‘You seen this?’ said Leon pointing to the newspaper rack.
She momentarily cocked an eyebrow at the headline before
returning to her own paper. ‘Oh, you worry far too much. It’ll
be another false alarm.’
She led the way up the busy street. Leon cast one last glance
back at the window before following her.
244
CHAPTER 6
Dr Kenneth Jones leant over in his seat to look out of the
window. Below, the small town of Amoso was barely visible in
the night. There were no street lamps on, although one or two
buildings were showing lights, presumably portable generators.
He could see several oil-drum fires scattered across the town
but apart from that it looked like a ghost town; there was
nothing going on down there, no cars on the roads, no
pedestrians. ‘I can’t see anything moving,’ he spoke into his
throat mic. The helicopter’s beam played steadily across the
small town, picking out the flat corrugate iron rooftops,
encrusted with aerials and satellite dishes and narrow streets.
Jones spotted something pale flicker into the intense beam of
light and out of it again. And then in…
Just...a plastic bag stirred up by the downdraft of the
helicopter.
Dr Gupta leant forward to look through the same window.
The face-plate of his containment suit clunked awkwardly
against the glass.
Above the deafening drone of the helicopter, Jones heard
Gupta’s voice over his headphones. ‘Dammit. I can’t see
anything useful in here…these UN-issue suits are too bulky.’ He
nodded. They were incredibly cumbersome and stifling. He
hated them. Jones was just about managing to hold in check the
suffocating sense of claustrophobia. The sooner they were done
here getting a sample, back to their hastily assembled UN opscentre, hosed down three separate times and out of these
bloody suits, the better.
245
‘Are we safe to go down?’
‘We clear the ‘copter first, Doctor.’ Jones looked at the five
men sitting across the cabin from him; French foreign legion.
Elite troops, Jones knew them by their reputation. ‘We establish
a safe perimeter,’ the squad’s sergeant continued. ‘Then you
come out. You understand me?’ Jones nodded quickly.
‘Relax,’ added the sergeant. ‘We take good care of you two.’
This wasn’t his first time; Jones had gone into Sierra Leone in
2014 with the first outbreak of ebola and last year there’d been
the suspected outbreak of Marburg in Liberia. But this time
there was the added danger of bullets. Hence the Legionaires
accompanying them. He and Dr Gupta had been briefed that
there might be a Boko Haraam presence in the town; the
government forces had cleared the town half a dozen times of
those terrorists, and they kept creeping back in like a persistent
cold.
Dr Gupta turned to the four other men in the helicopter’s
cabin. ‘We don’t know if there are any survivors down there. If
there are we must keep them well back. If this is an ebola
outbreakJones looked at Dr Gupta. ‘It’s not ebola. This is too fast a
spread pattern.’ He pulled a face. ‘We don’t know anything yet.
Haemorrhaging, that’s what eye witnesses have reported.
Ebola, Marburg, L-54, it might be a pathogen related to one of
those. But....’
There’d been just nine seconds of footage from a mobile
phone. That’s all. Nine grainy, hand-shaken seconds. The only
visual information they’d had to work from. Dr Jones had seen
246
bodies...dozens of them lying in the streets of this small town
earlier this afternoon. Heard a woman’s voice, shrieking,
terrified, the camera view whipping frantically from side to side.
Then it had ended abruptly.
Gupta was listening to a message coming in on another
frequency. Jones saw him nod and reply, voice drowned-out by
the deafening roar of the helicopter’s engine. And then his voice
came clear and crisp over the headphones.
‘The pilot is taking us down now.’
The helicopter lurched forward, gliding across the town, as its
floodlight swung from side to side, trawling for a suitable place
to put down. It picked out a crossroads clear of any obstructing
vehicles then quickly began its descent.
Below, the town seemed to stir to life, dust and rubbish
being whipped up into a frenzy by the intensifying downdraft.
Finally, gently, with a thud that he felt rather than heard, they
were down on the ground.
The sergeant pulled the sliding cabin door open and let his
four men out first. They scrambled out of the cabin, clumsy and
heavy-footed in their biohazard suits, onto the pot-holed tarmac
of the road, all of them dropping to a kneeling position and
scanning the perimeter with quick, precise movements. Jones
watched the sergeant and his men, scanning the perimeter, one
by one, getting to their feet and securing covered positions
around the helicopter, whispered orders in French crackled over
their earpieces, and finally the sergeant gave them the all clear
to get out.
Gupta tapped Jones’ leg. ‘You ready?’
Jones nodded. ‘Bit scared to tell the truth.’
247
‘We’d be idiots not to be.’
He stepped out and Jones followed, awkwardly struggling
to keep his balance. The air pack on his back was heavy, forcing
him to lean forward like an old crone carrying firewood. He
looked about him. To their left was one of the few buildings in
the town that had lights on. Not so long ago it had been a
garage, a sign in Hausa and English; ‘Repairs, Fixes, Sale of Car
and Truck’. The sign was spotted with paint-flecked bullet holes,
the cinderblock walls either side of the raised shutter door, too.
Open for business.
By the flickering beam of his torch he could see mounds of
cloth dotted around the junction, fluttering in the downdraft as
the helicopter’s blades still spun and the pitch of the engine
slowly wound down.
Gupta walked cautiously towards one of the small mounds
of cloth and kneeled down beside it.
Jones heard his voice over the intercom. ‘What the hell is
this?’
Dr Gupta beckoned him to come over.
‘Jones...come and have a look at this.’
He hurried over and knelt down beside him.
There was no corpse, certainly nothing that could be described
as a body. Instead, they were looking at a mess of darkly stained
clothes wrapped around a bundle of bones, patchy and mottled.
A skull lay on the road beside the pile... mostly vanilla coloured
bone, with just a patch of dark scalp and a tuft of hair left where
the victim’s crown would have been.
248
Beneath the bones and clothes a dark puddle of viscous
liquid had pooled.
‘My God. Complete liquefaction of all the soft tissue...’
Gupta shook his head. ‘In just a few hours?’ ‘That’s impossible,’
whispered Jones.
There were other humps of cloth and bone on the road. ‘It
kills quickly.’
Jones nodded. He knew what Gupta was getting at. It had
killed too quickly for these victims to make their way to some
triage centre. They’d literally dropped where they’d been
standing.
‘That’s...an encouraging sign,’ said Gupta. The phrase felt
poorly-chosen. ‘At least it appears there is no incubation
period.’ ‘Flash-fire infection,’ said Jones. Perhaps this pathogen,
whatever it was, was going to be too efficient for its own good;
no hosts living long enough to quietly carry the infection to fresh
pastures. Hopefully might burn itself out before it could spread
too far.
Gupta pulled out a small plastic container and a sample
pipette. He set the container down and unscrewed the cap. He
then picked up the pipette in his thick gloved fingers. ‘I will get
a sample of the fluid.’
Carefully he touched the tip of the pipette into the dark
liquid. Jones thought he saw the surface quiver or ripple slightly.
Gupta squeezed the rubber bulb and released. Air bubbled out,
and the liquid, thick as syrup, began to climb up the inside of the
narrow glass cylinder. Finally, he placed the pipette in the
container and screwed the cap back on.
249
‘We should look around...try to see if there are any
survivors.’
Gupta panned his torch across the front of the garage.
Through the half-raised shutter the glow from a solitary fizzing
strip light spilled out.
They made their way across the uneven road, potholed with
cracks and craters; decades old tarmac that needed re-laying.
Gupta ducked down under the raised shutter, Jones followed
him inside.
The oil-stained concrete floor was littered with tattered
blankets, discarded tins of food, clips of ammunition and
kalashnikovs.
‘Oh, shit,’ whispered Jones. Gupta heard him and nodded.
The town had been back in Boko Haram’s possession.
‘They must have been billeted here,’ said Jones.
‘I see no bodies though.’
‘Then they must have fled.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Gupta. Boko Haram propaganda
videos portrayed them as benevolent protectors and saviours of
the people. In reality they took what they needed, abducted
who they wanted and moved on.
The Sergent ducked under the shutter and stood up beside
them. ‘Everything is okay?’ His accent was thick.
They both nodded. ‘We’re fine,’ said Jones. ‘Fine.’ He
nodded. ‘D’accord.’ He looked around. ‘The militants were
here.’
‘And left in a hurry.’
250
The Sergent shook his head. ‘No. Not even in a hurry. They
would not leave behind their guns behind.’ He quickly barked an
order in French, and several seconds later two of his men
ducked under the shutter and joined them. ‘You two stay here.
We will check this place.’ Gupta and Jones nodded.
Jones watched as the three soldiers, worked together
silently, two covering, one moving, probing every dark corner of
the garage. Finally they disappeared out of sight as they
explored a doorway at the back.
Gupta looked at him. ‘Terrified?’
‘Very.’
‘Me too.’
‘This is not ebola.’ Gupta’s comment sounded halfway
between a question and a statement.
Jones shook his head. ‘No pathogen works this fast. It’s not
Marburg. It’s not L21-N. I have no idea what the hell this is.’
‘Perhaps a chemical weapon?’
He shrugged.
Suddenly the Sergent’s voice crackled over their earpieces.
‘Dr Jones? Dr Gupta! Come, please!’
They looked quickly at each other then hurried over
towards the doorway at the back of the garage. Jones stepped
through the door first. He could see torch beams whipping back
and forth across what looked like a small store room. It was
difficult to understand what he was seeing by the stark flickering
beams. He turned to his right and saw a light switch, and
hopefully flicked it.
A strip light in the ceiling blinked reluctantly several times
then finally winked on.
251
‘Jesus!’ Jones gasped. He looked down at the bundle of
clothes and bones and the pool of dark brown mulch beneath
it....then at the bizarre sight spread across the floor.
252
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Scarrow is the author of the bestselling TimeRiders
series published by Puffin, which has been sold into over
thirty foreign territories and has won several awards,
including a Red House Book Award, a Catalyst Award, the
Hampshire Book Award and it was also shortlisted for the
Galaxy Children’s Book of the Year.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Alex was a rock
guitarist and a games designer. He lives in in Norwich with
his family, and in his spare time he snowboards, sails,
writes music and walks his yappy Jack Russell, Max.
Twitter: @AlexScarrow
Website: alexscarrow.com